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Luke 10:29–37 NIV

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Whenever we talk about this idea of ‘love your neighbour’, there’s an unspoken assumption that drives our motivation. So let’s just throw this one out in the open. When we’re talking about loving people - we ask,

What does the other person need to look like before we love?

Because if you think about it, that’s what this guy is asking. He knows who his honest to goodness neighbours are (or at least, he’s not expecting Jesus to answer THAT question)- his question is more than that.

But this guy says, OK, you want me to love my neighbour - now which people exactly is it that I should be showing love to?

Now, jumping ahead a bit - i do believe jesus is saying a lot more than just ‘be nice to the people immediately bordering your property or apartment’. And I think this guy knows that too.

But the scriptures say, he asks the question in order to justify himself. That means - he expects the answer to mean ‘he’s already doing the right thing’.

And as an expert of the law, his life is laser focused on the israelite people. He sees himself as the pinnacle of humanity, God’s chosen people on earth. And I bet he’s expecting Jesus to say, ‘make sure you only love the people who are following the law fully. Who know how to actually act right’.

But, to respond to this guy, Jesus tells a story.

The characters are a priest, a levite and a samaritan.

Now, Jesus chose his characters VERY well. Because with the three characters, Jesus dives down to the very heart of what’s really going on here.

The priest and the levite, their lives were dominated by the answer to the question:

How can I stay ritually pure?

Their concern was on losing their own ‘holiness’ by being infected by the problems of something or someone else.

To the expert of the law, these guys were the big heroes. They were the good examples. They represented the idea of following the law, of purity and holiness by the standards they understood it.

It’s important to understand - the jews WERE a compassionate people. They had rules and laws for taking care of widows, orphans, slaves.

But the jews at the time,

They were putting the cart before the horse in many situation

The sabbath was meant to simply be a time of rest - the religious rulers and experts made it a crushing weight. The law was meant to inspire awe and reverence, they made it into an ironclad set of chains to bind and restrict people.

Jesus accused them of this later on:

Matthew 23:23 NIV

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

He says - you get the little bit parts of the law, and ignore the big picture. They were good at following the rules, and terrible at following the reasons behind them.

Now, I think there’s two things going on here with the priest and the levite:

First,

They were more concerned about their purity than about their love for others

Here was a situation where two holy characters were confronted with something that offended their sense of personal purity.

I won’t go as far as saying that they were legalistically prevented from helping - I don’t believe that’s true. There may have been a conversation about purity - would they be unclean until the evening or not. But the law doesn’t say, don’t help. So they could have, it just would have been inconvenient.

But they looked at this situation, and they saw a naked person, half dead, probably covered in blood - and they thought, but what about MY purity. I can’t risk MY cleanliness.

And if we’re honest with ourselves - how much is that our movation? How many times have we looked at somebody else and said ‘they aren’t doing things right, and i don’t want to be around that because what if it rubs off? What if God judges me and them at the same time?’.

Maybe it’s something simple like, they don’t know proper etiquitte for how to act in church, or they like things that we don’t approve of.

Maybe it’s something bigger like, they run their mouths, or they’re rude, or whatever.

But how many times have we sat down and said, ‘i’m not gonna do this, because I don’t want to catch their badness’. I don’t want it to rub off on me.

And don’t get me wrong, there can and should be personal lines. Recovering alcoholics really shouldn’t be putting themselves in social circles with practicing alcoholics.

But it’s one thing to say THIS IS MY STRUGGLE

And it’s another to say I DON’T AGREE, SO I DON’T WANT YOU NEARBY BECAUSE IT MAY RUB OFF

Jesus didn’t just spend time in proximity to sinners - he ate with them, he hung out with them. Jesus touched lepers - that was a big no no back then.

Know yourself, and your problems, and your limits. Know when being in a situation will honestly lead you into direct sinful behaviour.

but

God’s purity is more powerful than the world’s problems

We worry about infection spreading inwards. So we keep things the same,we keep them familiar. We know these things are safe and clean, so that’s all we let into our lives.

Jesus didn’t come to hide the righteous - he came to heal the sick.

He didn’t dig a hole and put all the righteous in it - he brought the amazing power of God and went out into the world to try and bring the sinners and the broken and the sick back to wholeness in God again.

And when our sense of personal holiness is so weak that it dies when we’re around sinful people - we tell the world that God just doesn’t have the power that He did in the bible.

God intended His power and his truth to go out into the world and change darkness to light.

But when we start drawing lines about who to love and who is welcome, what we’re doing is we’re hiding that light in a box to make sure that the darkness can’t come near it.

It SOUNDS like we’re protecting the truth from being corrupted but all we’re really doing is preventing the truth from being spread.

Jesus touched a leper. That SHOULD have meant Him getting sick - but it meant the other person getting well. That’s how God’s power works.

The Second thing that’s probably going on with the levite and the priest,

Their motivations were probably not pure

It’s reasonable to say, at the end of the day - they just didn’t want to. They may have been trying to maintain their personal purity - but their motives were anything but.

And again, Jesus calls them on this:

Matthew 23:27 NIV

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

And remember, jesus is telling this story to a person trying to prove that they’re already doing the right thing. And it’s obvious these guys didn’t do the right thing.

Jesus is pointing out to this expert of the law, when he’s saying, ‘who is my neighbour’,

He’s not trying to find MORE reasons to love someone else -

He’s trying to find more reasons to NOT have to love someone else

The underlying statement here is - ‘I just don’t want to’.

He’s not asking this question to try and have an excuse to help even more people.

So what about us? what’s our motivation?

When we start judging, start coming up with reasons why someone isn’t welcome or shouldn’t be loved - Maybe we’re actually trying to find a reason to not have to love. Maybe we’re thinking about a difficult person, or an immoral person, or whatever, and we’d be relieved to hear Jesus say, ya, just leave that guy on the side of the road. You’re good.

We talked last week about how we need to start with love. Starting with love here means, we try to love everybody. All the time.

Our first and most powerful motivation still needs to be ‘loving our neighbours’.

And then we make course corrections along the way.

Sometimes, God steps in and says ‘ok, ok, right here, i want you to do something differently’.

STORY - youth pastor friend who didn’t spot someone else to go on a trip

But

always be loving first

Be the kind of person who always wants to love, and God has to rein you in a bit if he needs to.

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Jesus uses these two figures to expose the motivations and heart of the expert of the law.

But the third character, the samaritan, Jesus flips the script.

Nowadays, this word ‘samaritan’ means ‘a charitable or helpful person’.

To the expert of the law,

The samaritans were Israel’s neighbours - and the bad guys

They did things the wrong way - they had the wrong set of scriptures, they had the wrong laws, they didn’t even worship at the temple.

And this bad guy, this villain, HE does the right thing. He goes to great lengths, and great personal expense.

And, sidebar:

in using his enemy in an example, jesus pointed out to the guy that

he didn’t really understand the love of God

because there was hate there still in his heart.

If you have a list of ‘the wrong kinds of people’ that you’re not supposed to love- that’s not God’s love. Jesus chose the samaritan almost as a dig at the guy, to say, ‘you say you love your neighbours - do you love this person?’

God loved the israelites - but he also loved the samaritans. He loves you - but he also loves your neighbour who is loud, obnoxious, and always complaining. He loves the person in church who may be inconvenient or disruptive. He loves your coworker who is really petty and not helpful at all.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are people who do things wrong. There are bad people.

But when we take God’s love, and put a limit on it, and say ‘it goes this far, and no further’ - we don’t really understand how powerful God’s love really is.

So anyways.

So, Jesus uses the samaritan to show how the other two SHOULD have responded.

Now, Jesus does something here that’s easy to miss, but it’s REALLY important.

The man asked the question - who are my neighbours? Or another way of putting the question - what are the qualities that I should look for in the OTHER person to love?

But Jesus asks a different question at the end.

Which one of these three men was the neighbour?

When we look at others, and we start drawing lines - I’ll love and welcome the people that do things the way I do. I’ll hang out with people who only see it my way on the most important issues -

We’re asking ourselves the question, ‘what are the qualities that I should look for in someone else before I love them?’

But Jesus, He asks a totally different question. He asks the expert of the law - and He asks us today -

Are we being neighbours?

Are WE the ones showing love, and helping, and sacrificing.

See, we look at the OTHER guy and what should THEY look like, are THEY the person I’m supposed to love.

But God looks at us and asks, what should WE look like. Are WE showing love? Are WE being good neighbours?

We shouldn’t be looking at others and asking if we should be showing God’s love. Because we should. At all times. To all people. Everywhere. Forever.

But here’s a scary truth -

Others should be able to look at US and EXPECT to see God’s love

John 13:35 NIV

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Everyone. Not just fellow believers. The world will see God’s love when they can feel our love.

They should be able to expect us to be ‘good neighbours’. Even if it’s inconvenient to us. Even if it costs us time, or money.

It’s not enough to say that we need to love.

The world needs us to love

The world need us to be the kind of people that are the best neighbours. The most loving, the most forgiving, the most sacrificial.

You are welcome here - and God is inviting you in