Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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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?
An expert in the law stands up and asks Jesus a pretty important questions:
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.
What do you reckon?
Answer...
Jesus:
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.
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
If you’ve been reading Luke’s gospel remember that the Samaritans came up back at the end of chapter 9.
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?
And of course there is no other answer to give but the one the law expert man gives:
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.
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
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:
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
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.
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