Luke 10:26-37

Luke 10:26-37

We have heard the story so much and it has become a part of our culture and language so that we are sometimes tempted to forget that it's not about the story, but it is about the application. A person would have been foolhardy to travel the road from Jerusalem to Jericho alone. But in this parable four people do this very thing on the same day. We must suspend reality for a moment to get the story to work. But if we do not overemphasize the story and focus on the application there is a gem for us.

The lawyer comes to tempt or trap Jesus. The lawyer was hostile and hoped to make a fool of Jesus. The question is, “How do I inherit eternal life?” The lawyer knew the answer to the question before he asked. Jesus tells him plainly, “Love God and love your neighbor.” The parable is not going to answer the question of how to inherit eternal. The parable is in answer to the attempted self-justification of “Who is my neighbor?” The lawyer was looking for a loophole, a way out. Jesus is not telling the parable to teach salvation by good deeds. Jesus is telling the parable to force the lawyer to confront his own failure.

Jesus responds to the self justification with the story of the Good Samaritan. The answer to the lawyer’s question is not, “Do good deeds, be like the Samaritan.” We do not inherit eternal life by being good. The parable is told to explode the complex lines of who is my neighbor. The religious elite had a complex system that allowed their misbehavior to be justified. For example, they forbade the helping of a Gentile woman during labor because that would help bring another Gentile into the world. Jesus simplifies the whole “who question” and says to each of us, “Do the same.”

We have often made the church complex, a bureaucracy of power and authority to justify our own agenda, sin and apathy. Being a follower of Christ is difficult but it is not complex. It is complicated but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, there is I believe an inverse correlation between complexity and disciple making. Loving God and our neighbor shouldn’t be confusing because it isn’t.

“Lord, help me love the person in need. AMEN”