March 22, 2000
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April 2 Lesson
We must love everyone to love like the Father
___Luke 10:25-37
___25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
___26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
___27 He answered: "'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 'Love you neighbor as yourself.'"
___28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
___29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
___30 In reply, Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins 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.'
___36 "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
___37 The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
___Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___Every summer, a small group of teenagers from Texas Baptist Children's Home in Round Rock travels to Juarez, Mexico, to work in an orphanage. It's an ironic trip, because the ones giving the care are the very ones who have been in need of care themselves.
___The children's home missionaries, nurtured the rest of the year by the loving care of Texas Baptists, come from a variety of difficult backgrounds. Some have experienced physical, sexual and mental abuse. Some have been orphaned. Others have made bad choices that alienated them from family and friends.
___Their caregivers suggest it is because of these experiences that the young Texans are able to relate so well to the Juarez orphans. Out of pain, they bring healing.
___They are modern-day "Good Samaritans"--not just because of the theological lessons they've learned at the Baptist children's home, but primarily because of the love in action they've experienced and now want to live out themselves.
___These Texas teenagers illustrate one of the lessons of the Bible story commonly known as "The Good Samaritan." In this exchange with his detractors, the Jewish legalists of the day, Jesus teaches that authentic faith engages both head and heart.
___Pride and prejudice
___While these verses condemn the Jewish leadership for their narrow-minded thinking (a common theme throughout the Gospels), Luke reminds his readers just one chapter back about the hard-heartedness of the Samaritans as well. Jesus had sent his messengers into a certain Samaritan village, and they were not welcomed because they were heading for Jerusalem. Prejudice can run both ways.
___The Jews and Samaritans may not have willingly shared anything in common, but they did share a common disdain for each other. This was rooted in the fact Samaritans were the offspring of marriages between Gentiles and Jews; they were half-breeds deemed unclean by a Jewish establishment that prided itself on purity in all matters.
___Pride and prejudice created an environment of hatred. Sadly, it's a scenario easily recreated today.
___The confrontation
___The four Gospels give numerous accounts of religious leadership of the day confronting Jesus, asking him trick questions in attempts to denigrate him or disprove his claim to authority. The parable of the Good Samaritan is told in response to such a confrontation.
___An especially interesting thing about this confrontation is that it in some ways is a reverse image of confrontations recorded by Matthew and Mark. In both those cases (Mark 12:28 and Matthew 23:34), someone asks Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the law, and Jesus replies by quoting the "shema," a passage from Deuteronomy 6 well-known to every Jew: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength." And then Jesus melds into his answer another familiar passage from Leviticus 19:18: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
___This very answer now is given back to Jesus.
___The scribe, or "expert in the law," approaches Jesus with a question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" This is the same question Jesus was asked at another time by the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16). Yet Jesus responded to the question in different ways each time.
___Though the setting and response are different, the bottom line is the same in this and the account of the rich young ruler. It is not enough to know the law point by point. Learning facts and rules is not hard. But learning how to live them out is a different matter.
___A deeper hole
___Have you ever opened your mouth when you shouldn't have and ended up embarrassed as a result? And have you ever made matters worse by trying to cover up your first mistake?
___That's exactly what happened to the scribe. Having been rhetorically trounced by Jesus, he attempted to "justify himself" but instead got more than he bargained for.
___"Who is my neighbor?" he asked.
___Though it may appear innocuous, it is a loaded question. The religious and social culture in which the scribe lived taught a strict definition of neighbor, and it didn't extend far. A fellow Jew or a full proselyte could be considered a neighbor. Outsiders, foreigners and certainly Samaritans never would be considered a neighbor.
___Now, if the scribe had been paying attention to what Jesus was teaching all around the countryside, he would have known he had just stepped into a deeper hole than before. After all, this is the same Jesus who had proclaimed, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."
___Demanding a strict definition of a law, or of a single word in a law, is a well-worn characteristic of legalism. Such tactics ignore the spirit of a law when convenient by emphasizing instead the letter of the law. The scribe's quest was not for understanding, but for affirmation about where to draw the line.
___"Who is my neighbor?"
___This question still resonates with us today, but it also reverberates throughout recorded history. Go back to Genesis, and you'll encounter Cain asking, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
___Attempting to define "neighbor" as narrowly as possible gets us off the hook. In fact, those who study genocide report this as one of the first critical steps toward making "ethnic cleansing" and its deadly corollaries possible. Once you define someone else as being less human or less pure or less meaningful or less useful than yourself, it's a short trip to branding them as unnecessary.
___Jesus brought a radical message on ethics at this point, based in the nature of God: Don't attempt to define whom you should and should not love. Love everybody.
___This is rooted in the all-embracing love of God the Father, who sent his one and only Son into the world so that "all who believe on him" may be saved. The "whosoever will" invitation of the gospel has been a foundational belief for Texas Baptists, and it has spurred the growth and success of Texas Baptist churches and ministries.
___When Christians throw away "whosoever will" and determine God has preordained some people for salvation and others for damnation--a belief gaining in popularity among some Baptists today--danger lurks. Once we determine God has created some people capable of receiving salvation and others incapable, it is easy to develop a two-level ethic of relating to others. We may care more properly for those we deem to be among the "elect" while finding justification to treat poorly those we deem to be among the hopeless heathen.
___Who is that man?
___Who was the man beaten and left for dead in Jesus' parable? We don't know, because Jesus doesn't say. And he doesn't say for a very good reason: Who the man is doesn't matter.
___This vague identity caused problems for two of the three people who passed him by on the roadside, however. If you're only committed to aiding certain kinds of people, you've got to be able to identify a person in need before deciding to help.
___Because the man was left naked, he bore no easily identifiable status symbols. Though our physical bodies take many different shapes and sizes, different skin colorings and vocal expressions, all humans are essentially the same when naked. It is what we add from there--how we clothe ourselves, how we present ourselves--that adds layers of definition.
___Legalism kept both the priest and the Levite from rendering aid. They likely feared defilement, either from contact with a potentially dead body or contact with someone who was ritually unclean. How often do we go out of our way to avoid seeing more closely the unpleasant needs of our society? This is a troubling question as we seek to avoid panhandlers, the homeless, the suspicious-looking as we travel sidewalks and streets.
___The Good Samaritan
___Had either the priest or the Levite done the right thing, the Samaritan would not have become the hero of the story. There's a subtle parallel here to God's larger plan of redemption outlined in the Bible.
___Most Christians believe God worked first through the Jews, his chosen people, to bring salvation to all nations. But when the Jewish people failed to acknowledge Jesus as the promised messiah and shunned his command to go into all nations with the gospel, God created another means of spreading the good news. As the Christian church, we are in some ways God's Plan B.
___The lesson is that God will accomplish his purposes either with us or without us. This must be a constant reminder to us, as we so easily can fall into the pattern of pride and prejudice that snared the Jewish leaders.
___The Samaritan, seeing the wounded man, "took pity on him," Jesus said. Compassion is what separated the Samaritan from the Levite and the priest.
___Spurred by this compassion, the Samaritan took extravagant measures to care for the stranger. He bandaged the man's wounds himself, put the man on his own donkey and carried him to an inn. Then he paid for the man's care without placing limits on the amount.
___We are reminded of Mary's extravagant gift to Jesus, when she anointed his feet with expensive oil. There was a legalist there that day, too, who wished Mary had passed by the opportunity she seized.
___The parable of the Good Samaritan and the story of Mary anointing Jesus' feet connect at this point: Those who follow Jesus should be broken and spilled out in compassionate love for all whom God loves. And God loves everyone.
For thought and discussion
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