Comunidad y discipulado

When Neighbors Move Us: A Journey to Boston (Luk. 10:25~37)

2013.10.13Dr. Michael Lindsey

Our neighbor is not defined by our boxes or comfort but by the one in need before us. Because we have been shown love, we must take the initiative to love and serve, today rather than someday.

Jesus answers with a story, not a definition (25-37)

The lawyer asks how to inherit eternal life and then asks who his neighbor is. Jesus answers his questions with questions and then tells a story. Luke is the only Gentile writer of the New Testament, and he traces Jesus's genealogy back to Adam, the father of all humanity. The lawyer rightly puts love for God first and love for neighbor second. The problem is that he wants to justify himself. Jesus does not stay within the lawyer's two options, the fellow Jew or the nearby Gentile. He pushes the question beyond the boxes people have drawn.

The priest and the Levite passed by

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was so dangerous that it was called the way of blood. The priest faced a real judgment call, since touching a dead body meant a week of purification away from his family, and he judged that someone else could help. The Levite, who worked under the priest, reasoned that if his boss had passed by, he should too. The audience would have expected the third character to be a layman. Jesus turns that expectation around, so that the Samaritan, not a Jew, is the one who helps the wounded Jewish man.

The Samaritan's radical mercy

The Samaritan bound the man's wounds, poured on oil and wine, brought him to an inn, and paid two days' wages in advance. He also promised to pay any further cost. Helping a wounded man from an enemy group risked community vengeance, and he did it anyway. Throughout church history, many have seen the Samaritan as a picture of Jesus, who risked his life to care for others. Jesus ends the story with the hardest words for us to hear: go and do likewise. This is the scandal of the gospel, that Jesus surprises us every day.

Today, not ten to fifteen years from now

Five years ago, the speaker was settled in Houston with a good faculty position and was not looking for change. A call from the Gordon College search committee seemed to belong to a distant future. A month later, his cousin Trent was killed in a car accident after stopping to help a police officer. Driving home from the funeral, the speaker remembered his own words about the future and sensed God's call to radical obedience. He realized that we are not promised tomorrow. The gift we have received is one we give back in service to God.

Blessed to be a blessing

The speaker does not know what God is calling each listener to do. He knows that we are called to be a neighbor, to take the initiative, and to reach out to others in love and service. Whoever we are and whatever God's call may be, we bless others because we have first been blessed. The lawyer's answer still stands: the one who showed mercy. The speaker made a promise to the Lord that he would yield to God's call, and he tells this story tonight as he keeps that promise.

Apply to Life

  • Let us look around and ask who the neighbor is that God has placed in front of us today.
  • Let us check whether we are more concerned with our comfort than with God's calling.
  • Let us step out of our comfort zone and respond to God's call in obedience without delay.
  • Let us take the initiative to reach out to others in love and serve those around us.
  • Let us remember that we are blessed to be a blessing and share what we have received.

This summary was made automatically from the sermon's captions and may differ from the sermon.

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