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There’s a saying that goes, “You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends.” Similarly, this applies to neighbours. To a large extent we can’t choose our neighbours either, but like family we can have a unique relationship with our neighbours that’s like no other. Sadly, in the world in which we live people typically don’t know their neighbours all that well if at all so we could say what does it matter whether we can choose them or not. Well, it does matter. I’m sure that there has been a wealth of studies done that demonstrate that having good relationships with your neighbours improves one’s own quality of life. So also, the adverse of that. If we don’t have a good relationship with even just one of our neighbours it diminishes our sense of quality of life. Life is not good if you have an enemy next door. Good neighbours make for a greater sense of community in the neighbourhood. Knowing who your neighbours are makes the neighbourhood a safer place. Whereas not knowing your neighbours opens the door to crime in a neighbourhood. Good neighbours look after your place when you’re not there, help you out, lend you stuff, and there’s always a laugh over the fence. It’s just plain good to know your neighbours and to know them well. They actually can become like family in many ways.
Looking at our passage here in Luke, it’s not uncanny that Jesus would use the example of being a very good “neighbour” as an example of how to have a life full of the presence of God if I can make that stretch. Let’s have a look.
A lawyer stands up to test Jesus wanting to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life and it is interesting that Jesus ties it to one’s conduct as a neighbour. Let’s first look at the question the lawyer asked. Off the bat, to our Modern ears it seems an odd question to ask because to us an inheritance is not earned. You don’t typically do something to get an inheritance. For us an inheritance is bestowed, given usually on the simple basis of a family tie.
But, that’s not the framework this lawyer was operating with as he was a Jew who lived in the First Century. In his mind the idea of inheritance had a specific referent in the promise God made to Abraham to give his descendants the land of Israel and make them a great and numerous nation. The fulfillment of that promise was the inheritance every Jew would receive from God, but they all realized that receiving this inheritance wasn’t necessarily a given. Receiving that inheritance first of all hinged-on Abraham’s faithfulness to God, which he was. But for his descendants to receive it, they must also remain exclusively faithful to the God of Abraham (no idols) and also observe the Law of Moses or they could lose the land and cease to be a nation. They could get themselves written out of the will, so to speak, as they did when God sent them into exile in Babylon for their idolatry and not keeping the Law; particularly the parts of the Law that required them to take care of the poor, widows and orphans, and foreigners in their midst.
So, in this lawyer’s thinking there was something the Jewish people must do to inherit the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham – worship God alone and keep the Law. This is the framework in which the lawyer places his test question. It is a test question. The lawyer is looking to catch Jesus on something in order to bring him up on charges. The lawyer is likely asking that since for the Jewish people the inheritance of the land and being a great and numerous nation hinged-on exclusive faithfulness to God and keeping the Law of Moses, does this apply to eternal life as well for the Jewish people? The test is whether Jesus will deviate from the established framework. Does inheriting eternal life require something other than exclusive faithfulness to God and keeping the Law of Moses? If it does, then to the mind of the this expert in the Law there’s false teaching involved.
Well, Jesus had been calling people to follow him. Would he answer that receiving the inheritance of eternal life was contingent on having faith in and following him? That would likely get him into trouble with the lawyer for it would place Jesus in the place of God and his way of life in place of the Law of Moses. But, we would say, “Umm. Isn’t that what Jesus says in John 3:16? ‘Whosoever believes in me shall not perish, but shall have eternal life.’”
Uh, brief excursion. Please don’t think of eternal life as going to heaven when we die. The lawyer was not asking what he had to do to go to heaven when he died. That was a question made popular by the medieval Church. Nowhere in the writings of First Century Jews or earlier do we find them asking that question. For most Jews and Christians back then, eternal life would have meant either our present life filled with the presence of God or the new age soon to come when the Messiah arrived and established the Kingdom of God here on earth or a mixture of both: experiencing the presence and reigning of God in one’s life now as a foretaste of what it will be in the coming age. And with reference to John 3:16, Jesus defines eternal life at John 17:3 as knowing the Father and the Son whom he has sent. Even in the Gospel of John eternal life does not mean going to heaven when we die. So…chew on that.
Getting back on track, Jesus realizes that he’s talking to an expert in the Law of Moses who is trying to trap him so he employs this expert device of rhetoric known as “Make the dude answer his own question”. “What’s the Law say?” Jesus asks. That’s a big question. How does one sum up the first five books of the Bible? Surprisingly, the Lawyer does very well. He gives the perfect summary of the Law; one Jesus himself used: “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 neighbour as yourself.” Jesus tells him that he has answered correctly and if he does that he will “live”. The omission of the word eternal there likely means having the type of life now that will be in the age to come – life full of the presence and reigning of God.
Well, I suspect the lawyer just realized he’d been outwitted. I suspect he has realized that he was not able to love God the way the Law required nor love his neighbour. I mean, how does one show love for God? According to this lawyer’s summary, we love God in concordance to how we love our neighbour which is related to how we love ourselves. Well, apparently this lawyer has some limits as to what love of neighbour looks like. So, he seeks to justify himself by wanting to define who is and who is not his neighbour. “And who is my neighbour?” He asks.
We know the story from there. A man is robbed and left for dead by the side of the road. Who’s going to help him? Not the priest. The man looks dead. If he goes to find out and accidentally touches a corpse, well, according to the Law, he can’t enter the temple where he lives and works for seven days because he has made himself unclean. So also, the Levite who also would have worked at the temple. Then along comes the Samaritan.
There’s some history you need to know. Samaritans and Judeans, though both groups were Jews, children of Abraham, and their lands neighboured each other, they were long-time enemies. The Samaritans saw themselves as true-Jews for they observed only the first five books of the Bible which contained the Law. But they were also of mixed lineage dating back nearly 700 years from when the Assyrians invaded the northern part of Israel and intermarried with them. Still, they considered themselves Jews and, moreover, their ancestors never went into the Babylonian Exile as did the ancestors of the Judeans. God never kicked the Samaritans off of the land. Similarly, the Judeans also saw themselves as true Jews because their lineage was pure and included the priesthood and their region housed the Temple, the place where God himself chose to dwell. So, this common disdain was both religious and racial. They weren’t good neighbours to each other. It is interesting that Jesus chose to use a Samaritan as an example of a neighbour in his parable to this Judean expert in the Law.
Back to the parable. Unlike the priest and the Levite, this Samaritan didn’t think about the consequences to himself if the man happened to be dead. Instead, he was moved with compassion and was concerned with what might happen to the man if the man were still alive and he didn’t stop to help. Like a neighbour ought, he checked to see if the man was still alive regardless of the Law saying that he too would be unclean for seven days if he touched the man or even just came in contact with his blood.
Compassion must override religious legalism. That’s the spirit of the Law. The Samaritan fulfilled the Law even though he didn’t keep the letter of the Law. He was very generous with the man. Put him on his mule. Took him to an inn and cared for him and then had the man’s care looked after when he couldn’t do it himself. Unconditional love, sacrificial generosity, above and beyond hospitality all in the name of compassion. That’s what it is to be a neighbour. Do that and live.
When Jesus asked the legal expert who was a neighbour to this man who had been robbed and left for dead out in the middle of nowhere where there were no neighbours, the man answered, “The one who showed him mercy.” Mercy. That’s an interesting word. We typically misunderstand it to mean the leniency of a judge. But in the Greek, the word means to show kindness to someone in dire need. If you get yourself a nice bottle of Greek olive oil, you’ll find the Greek word for mercy on it because the words for olive oil and mercy come from the same word family. Olive oil is like mercy. Not only was it an important source of nourishment, but it was also a healing balm. The Samaritan man likely would have put olive oil on the man’s wounds to heal him.
So, to be a neighbour is to show healing compassion to others indiscriminate of who they are which includes unconditional love, sacrificial generosity, and extending above and beyond hospitality especially to those with dire need. It is to let your life be a healing balm to the lives of others whatever the cost. Being this kind of a neighbour is what it is to have eternal life. Do this and you will live. The presence of God will permeate your life with a sense of your own belovedness to God and a sense of everyone’s belovedness. Mercy is applying God’s beauty, which looks like indiscriminate compassion, to the situations in life that are terrible to behold so that healing might occur and sacred beauty abound. Do this and you will live. Amen.
