The Good Samaritan - Luke 10:25-37
Luke: The Story of Jesus • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 24:39
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· 443 viewsHow do we receive eternal life? Who is my neighbour? These were the questions Jesus was asked by an exeprt in the law, and they are questions that are still really important for us to think about toay. As we unpack Jesus' answer we see that love of neighbour is a vital response of anyone who has been impacted by God's great love for us.
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Everybody needs good neighbours
Everybody needs good neighbours
So goes the theme song to the long running Australian soap “Neighbours”.
Of course if you watch the show you’ll know that often times the people of Ramsy St often find they don’t have very good neighbours at all. And hence why it’s watchable tv!
Back when I was 15 and watching the show, neighbours would be having affairs. The kids would be fighting. There was a guy who had a thing with two sisters… so awkward and very much not good neighbourly behaviour!
In our reading today Jesus calls us to something much more dramatic than soap operas. He calls us to radical love of neighbour. Not just to good neighbours, but all our neighbours!
Let’s take a look:
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
An expert in the law stands up and asks Jesus a pretty important questions:
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
The question: What must I do to inherit eternal life/How am I saved?
A good question.
Although it would seem the motives of the asker are some what circumspect:
He wants to “test Jesus”.
I think what’s going on here is this law expert wants to know what boxes Jesus thinks someone needs to tick in order to inherit eternal life, and he wants to know whether Jesus will answer in the way he thinks he should.
Jesus of course refuses to play his game and puts it back on the law expert.
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
What do you reckon?
Answer...
27 He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Jesus:
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
You got it!
But of course, our friend the law expert is still not satisfied, still wanting probably less to learn from Jesus and more to show how good he is, keeps pushing.
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
The law expert wants to prove himself justified.
To know know that he’s earnt his inherritance? To be sure that God will give him what he promises.
That’s understandable isn’t it?
Wouldn’t you like to have some sort of assurance of eternal life?
Well Jesus answers the mans question with a now famous story.
Who is my neighbour asks our law expert?
Who do I have to love?
The answer,
SAMARITANS!
Good Samaritan
Good Samaritan
If you’ve been reading Luke’s gospel remember that the Samaritans came up back at the end of chapter 9.
51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village.
If you were a Jew, reading Luke’s gospel in the first century you’d probably be thinking at this point. Typical Samaritans.
Not welcoming Jesus. Notice they don’t welcome Jesus because he’s going to Jerusalem, which is the Jewish capital and well Samaratins hate Jews and jews hate samaritans.
In fact a first century Jewish reader would no doubt be like good on you James and John, get God to smite them! They’re so bad! Boo Samaritans!
So when in our reading today we get this story in verses 30-35, and the Samaritan becomes the good guy...
...we’ll this’d be spit your drink out of your mouth kinda stuff.
This is a truly culturally shocking story.
It’s so hard for us to get our heads around because our culture at large has been so shaped by this story.
To get some sort of sense of the shock I think you have to think about soceity today. This would be like a right wing christian conservative helping a left wing gay activist or something.
And so as Jesus finishes the story he again asks the law expert, so who is the neighbour?
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
And of course there is no other answer to give but the one the law expert man gives:
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
The one who had mercy on him.
The law expert has asked Jesus, “who is my neighbour”?
He’s asked knowing that if we have to love our neighbours to inherrit eternal life, well there’s got to be some sort of limit or boundary to this so we can satisfy God’s demands on us.
Who is my neighbour?
Jesus’ parable of the good samaritn has totally flipped the law experts thoughts around.
Jesus says everyone is. Just be a neighbour whenever you are needed, to whomever is near you. No matter who they are.
Every single person deserves our help. And if we love God we will love others. We will meet their needs.
Just like the Good Samaratin did, so will we. In fact Jesus finishes by telling to be like the Good Samaritan.
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Go and do likewise
Go and do likewise
That’s not as easy as it sounds is it? Loving our neighbours. Like its hard to love people we actually like/love without been selfish. Let alone people we are ambivilent towards. Let alone scum of the earth samaritans, that is our enemies!
And so I think we see in this whole interaction with Jesus and the law expert, a reordering of our understanding of how we are saved. It shows us why we need grace.
Shows us why we need grace
Shows us why we need grace
What does the law say I need to do in order to be right with God?
Something very hard. Love God, medium level difficulty… Love everyone, high degree of difficulty.
And of course if doing this things is how you inherrit eternal life then that begs the question:
If you’ve failed to love your neighbour? Especially your nasty neighbour... have you lost your salvation? Will you fail to inherit enternal life?
This is where we need the help of the whole counsel of scripture to put this in it’s proper context.
And in Romans Paul teachs about what the role of the law is:
20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
The law is impossible for you and me to fulfill. Instead it only helps us realise how far off the mark we are.
Jesus came to fulfil the law for us so that we migth inherit eternal life by being united with him through faith.
Wilcock says in his commentary on Luke:
Eternal life is something to be inherited. And to receive an inheritance, you have to be an heir. No amount of doing will make you into one. Keeping the law is a way of life; it is not a way to life. It is only when by God’s grace we have become the right sort of people—his people, by the new birth—that we begin to do the right sort of things.
The way of Jesus is one of devotion and dedication, both in following him and in heralding him. But the way is not, on that account, a matter of assiduous ‘religion’ and frenzied service, of busy-ness and incessant good works. It means not achievement, but commitment; not activities, but attitudes; not quantity, but quality.
The Good Samaritan is not mean to be a way to life. Of earning eternal life. But rather a way of life a way of living because we have eternal life.
Grace empowers us to love
Grace empowers us to love
When we understand that eternal life is indeed an inherritance not a reward and when we respond to God’s gracious gift of eternal life by devoting ourselves to him then His life begins to flow out of us.
When we love God because of what he’s done for us. His love flows out of us onto others.
In fact, throughout the NT one’s relationship to God is connected to one’s response to others.
Eg. John 15:8-12 where Jesus says:
8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Likewise Paul writes in Col 1:3-5:
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel
Faith in Jesus and what he’s done for them. Which is flowing out in the form of love for others.
Faith and love that come out of what God has already got stored up for them in heaven.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
God loved us, in dying for us. So we love others.
Who is my neighbour in 2019?
Who is my neighbour in 2019?
As we finish i think it’s worth reflecting on a potential danger I see for us as we live out love of neighbour in 2019.
We live in a world which is increasingly global and large scale in it’s outlook. And we do have an obligation to think about how we can love our global neighbours.
However, I think that there is a danger in this large global scale, internet connected world that we actually fail to love our local neighbours. The people we can actually have real impact on.
If loving our neighbour has become primarily about #hastags and photoframes on our profile pictures, about protest marches and fights for global justice then one wonders if we’re really doing it right?
Certainly in the mind of our gospel writer it was much more local. I’m not saying those other things aren’t worthwhile. I’m saying let’s not let them become cheap replacements for the hardwork of loving people we have to rub shoulders with on a daily basis and who we find annoying, frustrating and generally hard to be around. Who take us away from screens and slogans and into the awkwardness of physical life.
Who is my neighbour? Anyone we can impact as we go about our lives.
Why do we love them? Because of God’s great love for us, overflowing from our hearts.
Let’s ask God to continue to fill our hearts with love for him, in response to His love for us. And ask that that love might continue to pour out into the lives of our neighbours. AMEN.