Grace and Peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in
the truth; for His word is truth. Amen
The Seventh
Sunday after Pentecost (2010)
A True
Neighbor Rev. Toby Byrd
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?" [26] He said to him, "What is
written in the Law? How do you read it?" [27] 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." [28] And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do
this, and you will live."
[29] But
he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my
neighbor?" [30] 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. [31] Now by chance a priest was going down that road,
and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. [32] So likewise a Levite,
when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. [33] But a
Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had
compassion. [34] 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. [35] 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.' [36] Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a
neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" [37] He said, "The
one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."
As a people, Americans are
well known for their charity; for their willingness to help others in time of
need. Yet, it is not uncommon to read of an incident where a helpless victim
was assaulted, raped, or even murdered while people looked on unwilling to come
to the victims aide. This dichotomy between those willing to help the unseen
while turning their backs on those seen is difficult to explain. Perhaps we can
attribute it to the difference between being friendly and being a real friend.
Have you ever known people
who know how to be friendly, but don’t quite know how to be your friend? You
know the type; they know how to say hello and occasionally engage you in conversation;
being friendly, but if you really needed them, if you really had to rely on them
during a crisis or a time of great need, they would turn a cold shoulder to
your need. They wouldn’t come to your aide because, well, you’re not family or
they just don’t quite know you well enough, or they say that’s not my job,
let’s leave it up to the proper authority. Such could be your next door
neighbor or even your fellow church member; one whom we call a brother or
sister in Christ. However, in today’s Gospel Reading our Lord shows us He
expects us to be a friend to everyone; He shows us how to be A True Neighbor to all.
The seventy-two whom Jesus
had sent to the cities of
Here is a man well versed in
all that the Old Testament and Jewish tradition had to say about the law and
earning eternal life. So when he hears our Lord’s response to the excitement of
the seventy-two, that they should not be rejoicing in the fact that the spirits
are subject to them, but, instead, they should be rejoicing that their, “names
are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20 ESV) his works-righteous training questions why
someone shouldn’t be excited about earning their salvation. Unsatisfied with
our Lord’s response, the lawyer challenges our Lord by testing His knowledge of
the law, asking; “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
(v. 25).
Our Lord Jesus is not intimidated
by the lawyer’s question. On the contrary, His response is a marvelous display
of kindly patience as He turns to the lawyer and asks in return, “What is
written in the Law? How do you read it?” (v. 26). Our Lord is eliciting from
the lawyer an answer which says that doing the law requires something more than
simple effort on ones part; it requires a new attitude, a new heart. The Lord
tells us through the prophet Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart, and a
new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from
your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you,
and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel
36:26-27 ESV). God’s gift of a new heart is the key to obeying the law.
The mastery of our Lord is on
full display in His counter question to the lawyer. By requiring the lawyer to answer
his own question; quoting from the law, our Lord illustrates that He is truly
the “Teacher” of all things. Moreover, He has changed the attitude of the lawyer from
one of challenge to one of cooperation. By asking the lawyer to quote from the law,
Jesus has now put the lawyer in the place of a teacher. Thus, the lawyer
answers, “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” (v. 27).
The lawyer’s answer is a
combination of quotations from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 illustrating
that indeed the lawyer has studied the law and has discovered these two
commandments which show the very heart of what God requires of us. To this our Lord
replies, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will
live” (v. 28).
Jesus is telling the lawyer,
“Yes, I see that you understand correctly, now go and live according to what
you have testified is the law. If you live up to your answer then you will
surely live.” If you live up to your answer, if you really love God and your
neighbor as the law commands, you will earn eternal life. However, don’t slip;
don’t have a single moment in your life when you don’t fulfill this command,
because in that case the eternal life you seek will be lost. Here, our Lord
Jesus intends to show the lawyer his fatal mistake of regarding the law as a
means of securing eternal life. This is the flaw of all who seek eternal life
through their works of righteousness. Their self-righteousness leads them to
overlook the name of grace in the law: “the Lord your God,” who is the giver of the
law, but who never intended to offer the law to sinners as a way to eternal
life.
Other than our Lord Jesus, no one
has been able to keep all the commandments perfectly. Furthermore, God’s Word
tells us that, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and
never sins” (Eccles. 7:20 ESV). Furthermore,
The lawyer should have been
satisfied with our Lord’s response, but, no, he has to show his superiority to
Jesus and flippantly asks, “And who is my neighbor?” (v. 29).
Here he is implying that the answer Jesus gave him was not quite that simple.
However, our Lord, in his following discourse, turns the table and shows the
lawyer and us that the question is not who our neighbor is, but how we can be a
true neighbor to our fellow man.
Our Lord tells a story of a
traveler who had been robbed and beaten by thieves. They even took his clothes and
left him for dead, lying naked along the road. While lying helpless in the
ditch both a Priest and a Levite come upon him and for whatever reason, they
pass him by, even crossing to the other side of the road to avoid him, never
once offering aide or assistance. However, a Samaritan, one whom the Jews
despised, came along and not only provided aide and assistance for the moment,
but he put the injured man in an inn and paid the innkeeper two-months keep to
ensure that the injured man would be cared for and hopefully recover from his
injuries. Moreover, he also offered to pay the innkeeper whatever additional
expense he might incur in caring for the injured man. Then our Lord asks the
lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to
the man who fell among the robbers?” (v. 36).
Notice, our Lord does not ask if
the injured man was a neighbor of any of the three, but which of the three men
proved to be a true neighbor to the injured man. Therefore, this is the
question our Lord asks of the lawyer and to each of us, “To who are you a true
neighbor?” How many golden opportunities have you had to be a neighbor and
simply passed them by? How many people have come into your life in true need of
assistance that you failed to be neighborly to? If God has commanded that we
love our neighbor as ourselves, then how often have you sinned in not
fulfilling this command?
The Priest and the Levite failed
to act in a neighborly manner most likely because of some flawed sense of duty
to the law. Here was a stranger of unknown ancestry, most likely dead, maybe
this person was a Gentile or a Samaritan, so they probably asked themselves,
could they, as devout Jews really render aide without contaminating themselves?
It is precisely this rigid and unbending attitude toward life that accounts for
so many unloving encounters with others whose lives are incomplete for want of
a helping hand. Today’s counterparts to the Priest and the Levite in Jesus’
illustration are those people who say: “I can’t help that person, they’re the
wrong race, or the wrong class, or the wrong religion, or their not Christian. It’s
not my responsibility, it’s not my job. Let someone else do it, someone whose
responsibility it is. Anyway, the government will help them!” I’ll be happy to
help from a distance, but I don’t really want to get actively involved.
While ignoring our duty, it’s
folly to imagine that others will contribute their part and do their duty, serving
the needs of the helpless. The truth is, most will not do their duty and
fulfill the commandment of God to love their neighbor. At such times, our Lord
calls on us as His children through faith, to follow the lead of our Savior,
Jesus Christ and extend ourselves in acts of Christian love and charity and be
neighborly to those in need.
When the lawyer answered that the
one who showed mercy to the injured man was the only one who proved to be a true
neighbor, our Lord told him, “You go, and do likewise” (v.37).
Touching the lawyer’s conscience,
our Lord commands him to be merciful. This command, so brief and yet so simple,
if it is acted upon by the lawyer or us, would be a fulfillment of the second
table of the law. However, where is the power in us to do and to keep doing,
without a break, all that the second table of the law requires, not to mention
the first table of the law? Truth is, it is not in us and we must call on the
power of the Holy Spirit to lead us in this endeavor to be a true neighbor. Moreover, every time we fail to act accordingly,
we pray that the Spirit will grant us repentant hearts to confess our sin to a merciful
God seeking His forgiveness and continued aide in leading us to live the
baptized life.
The lawyer, when he hears our
Lord tell him to go and be merciful, has his heart opened to the truth of his
selfish lack of love. Through his illustration our Lord shows the lawyer his inability
to win eternal life by his effort; the law will not save you. In five little
words our Lord opens the lawyer’s heart to see what prophets and kings longed
to see and what the disciples did see; the blessedness of the grace of God
which the Messiah, our Lord, Jesus Christ, brings to all who receive him by
faith.
The love of God poured out on us so
richly through His Son, Jesus Christ, is the strength that helps us to be
merciful. It is the strength that leads us to reject the religion of the Priest
and the Levite and to rejoice with St. Paul who says to us, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is
the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10 ESV) and again, “For
the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as
yourself” (Galatians 5:14 ESV). Amen.
May the Peace of God which passes all understanding
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.