Anchored in The Law and Life of Love

Introduction

Luke 10:25–37 ESV

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Earlier in this Black History Month I shared a bit about Rev. Francis J. Grimké, who pastored 15th Street Presbyterian Church here in DC from 1878-1927. I said that he was a Presbyterian father in the faith for me.

This morning I want to talk about a more contemporary hero, Rev. John Perkins. In Hebrews 12, the Pastor is encouraging his congregation to persevere in the faith through their trials and sufferings. Amazingly, he says to them in v. 4,

Hebrews 12:4 ESV

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Well, John Perkins is able to say, “I have indeed resisted to the point of shedding my blood.” As Dr. Karen Johnson writes in her book, Ordinary Heroes of Racial Justice,

Reverend John Perkins lay in his own blood on the floor of the Brandon jail in Rankin County. This was Mississippi justice in 1970, six years after Congress prohibited discrimination on the basis of race or color in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. White police officers had tortured John because he was leading “their Negroes” to upset the racial order. John and other Black people in the small town of Mendenhall had boycotted downtown Mendenhall’s stores to convince White residents to stop discriminating racially.

23 years before that incident, in 1947 he left Mississippi, like so many other Black Americans who fled the South in what’s known as the Great American Migration. He settled in California. Ten years later, in 1957, he became a Christian. And, incredibly, in 1960 he took a reverse migration and returned to Mendenhall, MS. He describes this change in his book Welcoming Justice: God’s Movement Toward Beloved Community.

He wrote,

There aren’t many black preachers who are called to evangelize white people, but that’s what I’ve spent a large portion of my life doing…No one ever put a chain on another human being without tying the other end to himself.

This is a supernatural response to the racial hatred and injustice he experienced that caused him to leave MS in the first place. When he left for CA in 1947, at 17 years old, it was after his brother had been killed by a White police officer. But when Jesus’ gospel, his good news of the kingdom, penetrates your heart, there must be a change. Instead of hard-heartedness, his heart was moved towards his enemies in love. It doesn’t mean that he was soft toward the oppressive racism and racists in his own community. He could’ve, like the lawyer here in v. 29 of our passage, gone on a self-justification kick, and said, “these folk ain’t my neighbors. I’m going to my own people.” 

Rev. Perkins is 95 years old and no longer able to be active in ministry and community service. His passion for the pursuit of neighbor love in Jesus’s name across lines of difference, pressing for racial justice and reconciliation did not diminish one iota over his ministry life. Someone shared this next picture with me and it blew me away. I was one of a host of speakers at the Mosaix National Multiethnic Church Conference in 2022. I was speaking on The Beautiful Community. All you see of Rev. Perkins in the picture is the back of his head, but he is leaning in intently focused on what I’m saying. Afterward he comes up to me and the other speakers from that evening to encourage us and exhort us to keep going. Here he is, at 92 years old, late at night dropping wisdom nuggets on us gleaned from gleaned from over 60 years of ministry.

What he has modeled, among other things, is this reality. Your heart cannot be hard towards anyone, and soft towards God at the same time. You cannot say, “I love God, but I hate them.” You cannot say, “I would love her, if she would only do…” You cannot say, “I would love him, if he didn’t do…” If my attitude towards others is that they have to earn my love, what I’m really willing to give them isn’t love, it’s what I owe them for their performance. In a very real sense, for love to be real it has to be given freely. We talked last week from Luke 7 about the fact that forgiveness is a gift that is given freely, even though it costs me. Forgiveness and love are intimately connected. Jesus said in our passage last week, “he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Lk. 7:47). Two weeks ago we heard Jesus say in Luke 6, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Lk. 6:27).

Listen y’all, here we are again! This love train is one that Jesus is not going to get off of. He’s doubling down on it in our passage because loving God and neighbor is the whole story. It’s at the heart of everything. And if you hear yourself being challenged by this, hear Jesus saying, “I want to transform your love life. Recognize your inability to have a meaningful love life apart from me. Recognize your inability to follow the law of love without me. It’s impossible. Come to me, and I’ll change you. Don’t waste your time trying to justify yourself and your actions.”

So here it is. We’re going to talk about being Anchored in the Law of Love and being Anchored in the Life of Love.

Anchored in the Law of Love

Luke tells us in v. 25 that a certain lawyer stood up in order to test Jesus. He asks Jesus a question, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” When you see the word “lawyer,” don’t think, “Law & Order,” and have an image of a TV attorney in a business suit in your head. This guy was an expert in the law, but his concern wouldn’t have been Roman law. He was an expert in Jewish law, the Law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible. This man, and others like him, are normally referred to in the Gospels as “scribes.” Every detail of Jewish life was to be regulated by the law of Moses. So there were men who devoted themselves to the study of that law. Their job was to study, to interpret, to expound upon the law; to teach it in schools and synagogues; to decide upon questions about the law, acting as judges. 

My point in giving you all of this background is to help us understand his question to Jesus. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He stands up to ask this question not in an attempt to learn from Jesus, not to sit at his feet, but to put him to the test. This lawyer wants to confront Jesus. He wants to trip Jesus up and discredit him and his message. So when he asks, “Teacher…,” it’s not a confession that Jesus is the teacher and I am the pupil. He’s not seeking information. He already believes that he knows the answer. I know that none of us in here ever do that. We never ask someone a question we already think that we know the answer to. We never seek to put anybody to the test to see if they’re legit. Of course we do. So, before we try to say that this lawyer is jacked up for trying to question Jesus, let’s just admit how much of that same spirit is in us.

And Jesus in his reponse says, “I’m not playing your game. I don’t play by your rules.” He asks the lawyer, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” Of course the lawyer knows the answer. He quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” Then he quotes from Lev. 19:18, “and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus then says to him, “You’re right. Now go do it and you’ll live. No problem.” Jesus says, that’s the sum total of everything. This law that you’re an expert in can be whittled down to one praise, “the Law of Love.” It’s simple, just love God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor like you love yourself and it’s all good. 

This guy has stood up to pick a fight with Jesus. He’s ready to go at it, and he’s confident because he thinks his question is going to put Jesus on the ropes, and then he’ll move in for the knockout punch. But what we find out is that Jesus’ response starts to upset his plan. He’s now on the defensive and taking a little step backwards. He asks Jesus in v. 29, “And who is my neighbor?” Maybe the weight of Jesus’ words are like a body blow. He already knew them, he was an expert, but Jesus delivers them like a gut punch. This is what you have to do if you want to live. 

We might not be a expert in the OT law, but we like the idea of the law of love. I have yet to meet someone who would have a problem with me saying that the essence of God’s law is love. The problem comes when I find out that I don’t get to define what love is.

You see, I’m alright with the law of love if I can make love out to be what I want it to be. Do you see how that shows up the text? The lawyer asked the first question to Jesus because he wanted to put Jesus to the test. But he asks the second question to Jesus because he wanted to justify himself. I can keep this law of love, Jesus, if I get to do it on my own terms. As long as I get to pick who my neighbor is, as long as I have the final say on how, when and to whom I express love, I’m all good with the law of love. Jesus here doesn’t give us that wiggle room. He doesn’t give us the wiggle room to cram in whatever definition of love we want to.

Jesus wants this lawyer to realize that he can’t fulfill the law of love. Jesus wants us to realize that we can’t fulfill the law of love. That’s because the law of love is all consuming. You shall love the Lord your God with everything! All your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind, all of the time. You can’t simply slip loving God into the compartments of your life. One person has their, “I come to church on Sunday compartment.” One has their, “I do my devotions and quiet time every morning compartment.” One has their, “I provide for my family compartment.” Or, “I help people in need.” Or, “I give to charitable causes.” Whatever your compartment is, the common denominator in all of the compartments is that it’s all about the “I.” It’s all about justifying ourselves as if we could make ourselves look good to God. God isn’t interested in one compartment that you’re willing to give over to him. He wants the whole thing. You know that John Legend song, “All of Me.” The first two lines of the chorus is the law of love, “all of me loves all of you.” This ain’t a department of my life thing. The law of love is that every faculty of our being, our emotions, our conscience, our physical strength, our intelligence is to be devoted to God at all times. 

How’re you doing with that? How’re you measuring up to the law of love? Do you find yourselves falling a little bit short of the standards? Jesus is issuing a command to the lawyer, “Do this and you will live.” How then do we do it? It’s no coincidence that these verses follow on the heels of what Jesus says in vv.21-22…

Luke 10:21–22 ESV

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

How are we even able to desire to live by the law of love? Only through Jesus Christ… No one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Loving God only comes through knowing Jesus Christ. By the power of the Spirit Jesus removes the scales from our eyes so that we can see clearly, and he gives us a heart transplant, removing that rock hard heart that despises God and lives only for self. And in its place he puts a heart of flesh that desires to love and serve and glorify God. It’s what enables a man to leave a more comfortable life in CA and return to the seat of racial injustice in MS in 1960.

As one commentator rightly put it, “The lawyer was right on one thing…Eternal life is something to be inherited.” I say to you, when you hear those words, “eternal life,” don’t just think about the future. Jesus is talking about life right now. Being anchored in the law of love becomes a way of life eternal, not simply a way to eternal life. This is what anchors us in the life of love.

Anchored in the Life of Love

“Who is my neighbor?”, the lawyer asks. Jesus basically says, “I’m going to take you up on this. We’ll keep going. Let me tell you a story.”

“A certain man was traveling down from Jerusalem to Jericho. And he fell among some thugs with bad intentions. They stripped him of his clothes. They beat him bloody. Then they left, leaving him practically dead.”

This road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a treacherous 17 mile journey. There were plenty of caves for little gangs of thugs to hide and then rob people who were daring enough to travel alone.

By chance, a priest was traveling down that road. We hear Jesus say that, and we expect to hear that the priest helped his Jewish brother. He’s in luck. His life is going to be saved! But the priest sees the man left for dead, and doesn’t even investigate the situation. He crosses to the other side of the road and leaves him. Then a Levite comes by. OK. Now he’s going to get some help. But the Levite does the man worse. The priest wouldn’t even come close. The Levite, though, comes to the place where the man was. He checks out the situation, then decides to cross over and keep on going. 

Why are they so callous? Did they have places to go, people to see, and things to do? No time to worry about a dying man. He’s going to die anyway. Maybe, but I think there’s more to it. The priests and the levites were set apart. They had significant roles in the religious hierarchy.

The law said in Leviticus 21:1 that when it comes to the priests, no one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, except his close relatives. They shall be holy to their God. If you were the chief priest, the law said in Leviticus 21:11, that he shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. The restrictions on the Levites weren’t as tight, so he gets a little closer. But he’s still not willing to touch the man and become unclean.

Here’s the point. The life of love that Jesus is describing isn’t clean. It’s messy. Had the priest or the levite decided to touch the man and enter into his mess, they would’ve had to go through at least seven days of ritual purification before they could get back to their jobs. They would’ve gotten messy themselves. They would’ve been inconvenienced by the mess of mercy. You can’t do mercy without getting your hands dirty. We like things to be neat and clean. We like it to fit within our schedule. We like it to fit within our expectations. The life of love that Jesus instructs us on doesn’t do either of those things. 

I don’t have insight to the thought process of the priest and the levite, but it appears to me that they were more interested in the letter of the law than the spirit of the law. They were more interested in saying, “I’ve got to keep myself clean. I serve the Lord God in the temple, and my ministry is too important for me to be distracted by this situation and then be unable to do my ministry job.” You can’t love like Jesus calls us to love without getting your hands dirty. 

You know how we do this? You know how we, in a sense, pass by on the other side, refusing to get messy and be inconvenienced? We’re tempted towards drive by mercy. Drive by mercy is thinking, let me be charitable and give money. Let me be charitable and buy some canned goods or some clothes to give to the shelter for those in need. Those things are necessary, but it’s a problem if you’re never engaged in the middle of the mess. If we’re trying to do drive by mercy and are never disrupted by the messiness of love, it means that we’re viewing people simply as problems to be fixed. So we’ll give some money to fix the problem. People are not problems to be fixed. People are image bearers of God to be known and loved.

And what that means is the life of love is not only unclean, the life of love is costly. A neighbor is found for this man, an image bearer of God, laying in his own blood, about to lose his life. This neighbor is the most unexpected neighbor you could imagine. 

Jesus says in v. 33, “A Samaritan who was on a journey came to where he was. And when he saw him, he was moved with compassion." This is what was missing with the priest and levite. There was no internal movement, there was no gut reaction in the right direction. They were moved on the inside. They did have an internal reaction. You don’t come across someone who’s almost dead and not have some internal reaction as you process what you’re going to do. But their reaction wasn’t the right one. It wasn’t what’s at the heart of the law, and that’s love. Being moved with compassion is a response of love. 

That internal response worked itself out in the Samaritan towards a willingness to pay a deep cost. Everything that the priest and the levite weren’t the Samaritan was. He embraced the mess. He touched the man. He had to in order to bandage up his wounds. He had to get messy if he was going to treat the trauma. Picture him getting blood on his own clothes as he pours oil and wine on the man’s wounds. When he embraced the mess, he went all in. The man can’t walk. Jesus says that the Samaritan sat him on his own animal. I’m going to walk and you’re going to ride. He got to an inn, and he didn’t just drop him off and keep going on his journey. Jesus says in v. 34, he brought him to an inn and he took care of him. What did the Samaritan have planned? I don’t know, but this stranger was more important than his plan. He paid the cost of his time. Then the next morning, he went into his pocket and gave the innkeeper the equivalent of two days’ worth of his salary, instructing the innkeeper to care for the man. Then, he says, if his care requires more money, go ahead and spend it. I’ll pay you back when I return.

Here’s the thing. Jewish folk and Samaritan folk were enemies. They didn’t have anything to do with each other. If anybody had an excuse not to show mercy, not to pay the cost of loving this man, it was the Samaritan. Who does that? Who loves like that? Who in their right mind enters into the messy, suffering condition of their enemy? Who is moved with the type of compassion for his enemy that would cause him to enter his enemy’s suffering, getting blood on his hands as he is willing to pay whatever cost is necessary to heal and restore someone who would’ve wanted nothing to do with him? You know the answer. The answer is Jesus. The answer is God himself. 

We are the ones who ought to see ourselves in the position of this left for dead man. We are the ones who God looked at and saw us dead in trespasses and sins, enemies of God, by nature children of wrath (and he didn’t pass by on the other side). He entered in and gave us life!

This Samaritan is living the life of love, reflecting the same compassion that God has given us in Jesus Christ. He is a neighbor to his enemies. Do you know that you don’t get to choose who your neighbors are? I know you chose your neighborhood for a variety of reasons. I know you went on a search for the right place to live…But from Jesus’ point of view, you don’t get to pick and choose who your neighbors are. Everyone in your life from your most beloved friend to your most despised enemy is your neighbor. The lawyer in his question wanted to emphasize minimum obedience. I want a narrow field of my own choosing. I want to pick and choose who I’m merciful to. I want to pick and choose who I love with the love of Christ. I want to decide on my own terms who is worthy of receiving my love and who isn’t. And Jesus blows the field wide open. And there are no excuses in the life of love, ethnicity is not an excuse, relationship problems are not an excuse, personal preferences and comforts are not excuses. There are no excuses.

You cannot extend grace without cost. You cannot extend grace without mess. You didn’t receive grace without cost. You didn’t receive grace without mess. What makes you think that you can give it neatly? Grace by definition is messy because grace by definition is undeserved. Grace isn’t given on the basis of the person being worthy to receive it.

That’s why the life of love takes a Spirit of God empowered commitment. Jesus asks the lawyer a second question in v. 36, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The lawyer has no choice but to say, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus says, “You go, and do likewise.” You go and be indiscriminate when it comes to being a neighbor. 

The challenge is, as one commentator puts it, “One cannot define one’s neighbor; one can only be a neighbor.” “You can’t define your neighbor in advance; you can only be a neighbor when the moment of mercy arrives.” 

Remember the lawyer’s first question. He was testing Jesus, and was only asking the question because he thought he already knew the answer. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus put him on the defensive by demonstrating to him that he couldn’t keep the law of love. The demand was too high. So, the lawyer tried to put a limit on the law of love by limiting his neighbor to his ethnic group. Jesus tells him about the life of love. And he’s in a corner again. Go and do likewise. The conclusion is the same. I don’t have it in me to reach out in costly compassion to everyone all the time, even to my enemies. We need the power and presence of the Spirit of God, who is given to us by faith in Jesus Christ if we’re going to live the life of love that Jesus calls us to. 

Do you know why we need the active, present powerful Holy Spirit to live like this? Because you will experience compassion fatigue living the life of love. You will grow tired of indiscriminate love if you’re drinking from the well of your own strength and desires. We must drink from the well of God’s Spirit that will never run dry if we are going to have our love lives transformed and live the life of love to the glory of God.