Who is my neighbour - the Good Samaritan

Sermon notes from Saturday 8 July 2017 Keswick Convention
Luke 10 verses 25 - 37

Lawyers around the world tend to be the same.  Pouring over case studies, studying how the law can be applied, what can be acceptable and what is not.  It is a general attitude many legal minds had 2000 years ago as they do today.  Jesus often took such people on and this is one example - a story of the neighbourly good Samaritan.  Jesus was saying "right you get out of this one."  Lawyers thrive on testing questions.  Seeing this story in a form of questions will help us understand ths parable.  In verse 25 an expert stands up to test Jesus - "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  In verse 37 Jesus has answered the questions and says "go and do thou likewise."  In answer to the initial question Jesus tells him what to do - do the same in the case study I have told you about it.  Jesus responds to the initial question with another question in response.  Verse 26 to the eternal life question Jesus asked for a summary of the law.  His answer was perfect - love God, love your neighbours.  He knew his Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures.  Jesus rightly commends him - verse 28 - "do this and you will live."  Get to heaven by believing God.  Salvation is by works is very clear from the lips of the Lord himself.  The lawyer parries with another question of course.  There is something niggling him about the issue with his neighbour - "so who is my neighbour" he asks.  Lets just clarify this, get it straight.  We know nothing about this person, he is clearly no fool, is obviously well educated, hints at his mindset.  How to test Jesus.  Had his mind set out to test Jesus.  He could be legitimate or maybe there is something sinister behind his question.  In verse 29 we read "he wanted to justify himself."  He wanted to do it himself.  Do is the operative word - "therefore do this and you will live".  If you spent your professional like thinking about the law you will always question the boundaries.  That is how it works, hence the neighbour question.  I get I have to live but is there a boundary to that especially when eternal life depends on it?  Jesus takes him on.  He gives as good as he gets.  He always does that.  Jesus was never caught out.  He knew how to handle it.  Jesus gives him more than he bargained for.  Not some nice sweet parable.  Actually this is a legal case study with real punch and it concerns this issue.  We learn 3 things that God expects, no demands.

Love without excuses.  Jesus converts what starts out as a test into an act, a test of the lawyers obedience to God.  Love is key to the law, so it is love that is the key to this story.  It is profoundly disturbing apparently.  The Jerusalem to Jericho road is dangerous.  It covers 17 miles and descends 3000 feet.  A solitary traveller was easy prey.  It is no surprise that this man ends up at death`s door, hardly breathing, hardly moving a muscle, life is literally seeping away as every moment passes.  A truly gruesome scene but apparently a common one.  There is only one conclusion from this story - this man is dead except it is no corpse.  This man is alive.  Only getting up close you can feel the faintest of breaths but you need to get up close.  This road was very busy.  The priest`s family would live near this area, could come down this road to get away from it all for a few days.  Priests were a common sight on this road.  Jesus told a story of reality.  The priest was perhaps going home.  For us today we can hop on a bus or get into a car but in Jesus` day people walked everywhere.  Put yourself in the priests shoes.  He was tired, hungry, had a need to get home quickly.  He makes steady progress down the mountain, probably notices the vultures.  He knows what to do.  He knew his bible.  Contact with dead bodies as described in Leviticus 21 made the priest unclean.  Even though today in our mindset things seem pretty weird this for them was their daily bread.  The biggest threat to his purity there ever was.  Even a moments contact was sufficient.  If he did become unclean he would have to go back up the mountain, go through all that rigamore of cleansing and it was not worth it.  It could have been a trap, accomplices could have been behind the rock waiting to pounce if he did stop.  It makes sense to walk on by.  It was not worth it.  I don`t have the time.  It is not my job.  Someone will come along eventually.  I cannot afford to let a corpse make me unclean.  Except it is not a corpse.  He is alive.  You would only know that if you get up close.  He would not take the chance, not even a chance of contact and lets face it who can blame him.  He had every excuse in the book.  Verse 32 next came a Levite.  He was a junior to the priest.  Jesus was working down the pecking order.  You cannot trust today`s leadership.  They are lining their own pockets.  A Levite was next.  It is no surprise that he does exactly the same thing.  He had every excuse in the book.  When Jesus said at the end "go and do likewise" he clearly does not mean to be liked.  The priest and the Levite were setting themselves up to be attacked.  The lawyer maybe could relate to this story.  He understood every reason in the book not to get close.  This wasn`t a corpse though, he was alive.  The law says nothing about touching someone who was dying.  Nothing whatsoever.  This man in the ditch would be dead soon.  He needed help.  The priest and the Levite avoided their responsibility to love him.  We do the same as Christians, atheists or anyone.  We justify our actions when we put our mind to it.  We can justify any action even in spiritual theological terms.  We might say "I am trying to use my time strategically, trying to use my time wisely, I have this really important political meeting, I cannot do everything, I have to go to my prayer meeting, I need to prepare a bible study, I do not have the time for this, I am sure the Lord will raise someone up to do it."   Old Testament purity was a good thing.  It was the Lord`s own idea.  They are excuses not to love.  You cannot say to a dying man in a ditch it is not a strategic use of time.  If it was me lying there I would like someone to love me.  Loving without excuses.

Love without boundaries.  The average listener would guess what was next.  It was going to be a Jewish person next.  Jesus though plumps for a Samaritan in this legal case story.  The Jews and the Samaritans had centuries of history.  The story was up to now realistic.  Now you have blown it.  Gentiles - well you cannot trust them.  We hate them.  They were probably responsible for the attack in the first place.  Jesus says that is where you are wrong.  You can trust him.  He is the hero.  He realises the man is alive.  He does everything he can to help.  The interesting thing is the dying man is naked.  The thieves have stripped him and it was obvious to passers by if he was Jewish or not.  The Jews and the Samaritans didn`t get on with each other.  They could have guessed he was Jewish, all the more reason to ignore him.  Jesus tells us nothing about this man`s race, absolutely nothing about him.  We know nothing because that does not matter, that is to miss the point.  What concerned the Samaritan was this was a man, a fellow human being who was dying.  He showed love.  Regardless of the race or barriers that could be used as an excuse to ignore him.  Love without boundaries.  Jesus says "do likewise".  Love without boundaries.

Love without accounts.  The Samaritan goes beyond his duty.  He comes to where this man was.  When he saw him he took pity. He was not thinking.  He only thought about the fact that this man was dying.  How could he not help?  He picks him up, takes care of him.  He does not just save him.  He does everything he can to get him back on his feet at extraordinary expense.  He had everything with him - a donkey, wine and water.  He lifts him onto the donkey and he goes to the nearest hostelry and gives money for someone to look after him.  He gives 2 months rent and that is extravagent.  Love for someone who he knows nothing about.  Jesus tells us nothing about the practical giving or this man.  He would return to give more if necessary.  He not only had good intentions but he had money as well.  The Samaritan did have money.  Here was a man of means but something more significant - love.  You don`t have to be rich to have that.  You can be rich and not have it.  It matters what you do with your wealth.  It is profoundly challenging.  How does Jesus conclude this story?  We would expect Jesus to finish his story with a different ending.  We expect him to ask who is my neighbour.  The answer is obvious.  The man lying in the ditch, I have to love him.  The lawyer would have realised he would have had to condemn the priest and the Levite.  It was a difficult pill to swallow.  He would have to accept a dying man in the ditch for that is my neighbour.  That is the fulfilment of the law.  Case closed.  Not what Jesus asks.  "Who was a neighbour to the man in the ditch, who acted in a neighbourly way?"  A very different question.  It is not so much a bitter pill even though the answer is easy.  It is a impossible pill to swallow.  The lawyer responds "the one who had mercy on him."  He cannot bring the word onto his lips - Samaritan.  It gets stuck in his throat.  The answer is not complicated to answer but too hard to accept.  Jesus tells him to do what he did.  That is the end.  We hear no more about this lawyer.  We do not know how he responded.  Can we do what the Samaritan did?  Love without excuses, without boundaries and without accounts?  That is impossible.  No one does that.  We might give generously but no-one gives 2 months rent to a stranger in the street.  No-one does this.  This Samaritan is too good to be true.  Clearly fiction, not real.  This kind of love is impossible.  That is the point.  This love is too much.  We just cannot do it.  It is impossible to work your way to heaven, to do anything to justify yourself.  Heaven`s standard is perfection.  Love that keeps on pouring.  Anything less in heaven would turn it to hell.  If the world could be saved by good book keeping it would have been saved by Moses not Jesus.  The only way is not to be good but through Jesus.  It is only through what he did on my behalf.  Not through what we might do for him because it is too much.  This case study exposes our need to receive this kind of love because we cannot give this kind of love.  That is the amazing thing.  This story is fanciful, absurd up to the point of the life of Christ himself.  Suddenly it becomes all too real because that is what he has done for us.  A love without excuses, boundaries, accounts.  He gives and gives until there is nothing left and he cries out "it is finished".  That is the gospel.  That is grace.  That he died for us.  What we could never do.  That is the wonder of it all.  We do know a Good Samaritan, the one who for our sakes became poor that we might become rich but I cannot leave it there.  Once we have been justified by this amazing act of love on the cross how can we sit still?  How can we not respond with the same kind of love?  "Go and do likewise" because we are finite, limited, how can we not love like he did?  Not earn his favour, never do that but because we have his favour.  Not merely a illustration of love he shows us, but placing a challenge to us who do not love others as Jesus loved us.  We do find excuses.  Jesus says "go and do the same."  Love without excuses, boundaries and accounts.  He did for us what we could never do for ourselves and says in response - we love as he loved us.