Howdy Neighbour
SDC Sunday, Aug 27 2006, Luke 10:25-37
Intro:
What is your favorite question? (invite responses).
What do you think is the most important question, in all of life? (invite responses).
Luke 10:25-29
This morning I want to share with you a story from Jesus’ life, where a guy comes to Jesus with a pretty big question. We don’t know this guy’s name, all we know is that he was a pretty smart guy, actually an expert in all the religious stuff of his day. He comes to Jesus and asks, “"Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?"”
That is a pretty good question! “What do I have to do to make it to heaven?” “What do I have to do to have some hope beyond this life, and into the next?” “What do I have to do to be ok?”
I love Jesus – He is one of the greatest teachers ever, and He answers this question using one of the best teaching tools ever – He answers the question by asking another question: “"What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?"”. Now kids, I don’t recommend you try this when you head back to school, and your teacher asks you, “What is the capital city of Zimbabwe,” please don’t answer, “What does the textbook say?”, or, “What do YOU think the capital of Zimbabwe is?”; because if you do the next question will be, “Would you like to see the principal?”
But Jesus is not being rude, He is inviting this other teacher into a conversation, and the teacher gives a good response: “" `You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, `Love your neighbor as yourself.’ "
The answer is Love:
The answer to the really big question, about how to receive eternal life, is answered in just one word: love. Love God, love your neighbour.
That is pretty simple, and pretty profound, and incredibly challenging to actually do. It is easy enough for every child to understand, and challenging enough that we will all spend our entire life trying to figure out how to actually live our lives by loving God first, and loving others second.
Friday my son Thomas and I were having a conversation, and somehow we ended up talking about love and I told him, “I love you more than I love myself, and I love myself quite a bit!” He said, “I know,”and I said “What about you – do you love me more than you love yourself?” Now, perhaps I just like to live dangerously, because you never really know how a child who is almost 6 is actually going to answer that question, and I certainly had no idea. He thought about it for a moment, then said, “yes daddy, I do love you more than I love myself. But it is pretty hard.” I’m sure some of you agree that it can be pretty hard to love me! But he taught me something in that simple comment – that even a child can understand both the idea and the challenge.
That is the answer to that deep question, “what do I have to do to have hope for eternity” – it is to love God and love others.
For those of you who don’t have a solid hope for eternity, it really is that simple – Jesus offers us love, hope, forgiveness, a brand new start, and all that is required of us is to accept His love and then love Him in return. If you have never experienced that love, you can by simply asking Jesus to show you His love for you, and then responding to that love.
The teacher tries to stretch it out…
This teacher that is talking to Jesus isn’t going to let it go quite that easily… so he starts to try to pick the answer apart a little bit. He basically says, “ok, love God and love my neighbour”, but wait a minute… “"And who is my neighbor?"”.
This, too, is a great question. You see, none of us can love everyone – we simply do not have the time or the human capacity to love all the people in the world – and God did not design us to love that many people. Impossible! So how do we choose? Who should we love?? Do we have to meet every need, respond to every crisis and disaster, reach out to every hurting person??? It is an absolutely fantastic question: who should we love?
In response, Jesus uses another incredible teaching tool, He tells a story.
The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35):
(retell story using SDC staff or volunteers or kids)
30Jesus replied with an illustration: "A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
31"By chance a Jewish priest came along; but when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
33"Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt deep pity. 34Kneeling beside him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35The next day he handed the innkeeper two pieces of silver and told him to take care of the man. `If his bill runs higher than that,’ he said, `I’ll pay the difference the next time I am here.’
So What Is The Answer?
It is a great story, widely known and the images are used in our society – in fact, the province of Ontario passed a law in 2001 called “The Good Samaritan Act” (which makes it illegal to do what the first two people did, as well as protecting the third person from being sued by the person who was helped).
But how does the story help us answer the original question – who should we love, who is “our neighbour”. The first part of the answer is obvious – we should help those in need, those who are half dead, left in the ditch completely unable to help themselves. But then we encounter another problem – in our world today, there are people like that everywhere – pick up a newspaper, turn on the TV news, there are huge needs like that everywhere, so what does the story tell us about that?
The story tells us that we should help those in need, whose paths we cross. You see, in the story the Samaritan was not out looking for robbery victims to help, he wasn’t part of some search and rescue team, he wasn’t a badge-carrying member of the Jericho-Jerusalem Highway Patrol. He was just a guy, on a journey, who came across someone in need.
And when he did, he completely upended his life, his plans, his priorities, to extend love to another human being. He used the supplies he had, in this case a little bit of oil and wine which he used to clean and protect the wounds, he got off of his own donkey and walked, he took him to his room in the inn, laid him on his bed, and did all the other things to care for an severely injured man through the night, and then spent his own money to ensure the man got the care he needed, and basically left a blank credit card receipt in case the charges went any higher.
The story tells us that the people we are to love are those in need whose paths we cross.
It’s About Character:
You see, this story is about our character. Who we are, deep inside, and how we live that out. Do we live for ourselves, or for others? When we see needs around us, do we cross over to the other side because we don’t want to get dirty, or inconvenienced, or slowed down in getting to our own destination? Or do we gladly interrupt our agendas to demonstrate love to those in need, whatever the cost to us?
Putting Some Faces To It:
You might come across people in desperate physical condition, like the man in this story. But more often, you and I come across people with a far different, and far deeper, sense of hurt.
• maybe it is the person at school who gets bullied, rejected, left out, and put down. Jesus says we need to cross the hallway to them when everyone else is crossing the hallway to get away from them.
• maybe it is the woman at the grocery store who is haggard and depressed, three out-of-control kids hanging off the shopping cart, getting dirty looks from the other shoppers. Jesus says we need to cross the grocery aisle and offer them a word of encouragement or other tangible help, to somehow begin to bandage the wounds and stop her life from simply flowing away.
• or maybe it is the person in your workplace who slips in to work everyday, barely coping with life for whatever reason, trying really hard to keep it all together but everyone knows they are pulled so tight they could snap at any moment. Jesus says we need to cross the office floor and somehow lift that person up and carry them to a safe place where they can rest and recuperate, and begin to live again.
• I’m not sure who it is for you, that crosses your path, that has been beaten and left for dead, but I do know this: God is the one who caused your paths to cross, and the reason is so that you could be the hands and feet of Jesus to that person. I trust God enough that He will only bring people across our paths whom we are equipped and prepared to help. If only we will choose to help.
As A Community:
As a church, we have decided that we are a community of people who joyfully chooses to put relationships of love ahead of every other consideration. That is a high call, a lofty goal, which will completely change the world around us if we live it out – if every time we come across a need, we joyfully interrupt the busyness of our own lives to heal the hurt, to ease the pain, to nurse the wounds. In the weeks to come, we are going to look at who God has placed in our paths who are in need, but for today the message of this passage of Scripture is simply this:
“What must we do to inherit eternal life?”
“love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength”
“love those in need whose paths you cross”
