Like a Good Neighbor…

Luke 10:25-37

Who do we consider to be our neighbors? I think it’s fair to say that those people who live right next door to us, we would consider them to be our neighbors. Maybe even the young couple across the street. Maybe we even consider those who live in our communities to be our neighbors. Maybe we consider those who live in our great city of Milwaukee or our beloved Badger State to be our neighbors. And when we consider people to be our neighbors, we tend to treat them with an extra measure of love and compassion. When we see an elderly man a couple of doors down from us struggling to cut his lawn, we may offer to help him. When we hear of a tragedy that has affected someone in our community, like a good neighbor, we’re there to help them in any way that we can. Now let’s think about this in a different way. Who are those who we do not consider to be our neighbors? Maybe it’s the stranger we see walking in our neighborhood and we say to ourselves, we wonder to ourselves, who is that person and why are they in our neighborhood? Maybe we don’t consider those to be our neighbors, people who have more stuff than us. Maybe we don’t consider those to be our neighbors, people who have fewer things than we do. Maybe we don’t consider those to be our neighbors, people who simply just do not look like us. Sadly, we find many reasons to discount, to not count people as our neighbors. In our text for today, we read how an expert in the law wanted to know what he could do on his own to inherit eternal life. Now this expert in the law probably knew, should have known, the answer that Jesus was going to give him. After all, he was an expert and Jesus said to him to love God fully and to love your neighbor as yourself. Now most of the Israelites typically only view their fellow Israelites as their neighbors and so the expert in the law does ask the next question, who is my neighbor? Why would the expert in the law ask that question? What was he getting at by asking that question? Really, the expert in the law is saying that it’s okay to treat some of his neighbors, with love and mercy and compassion, but others who were not his neighbor, those people he could treat any way he wanted, certainly not with the same love and mercy and compassion with which he treated his neighbors. So Jesus then tells the man the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man was half dead on the road, was left half dead on the road by some robbers who attacked and beat him. A priest, a religious leader saw the man on the same road and crossed by on the other side. Shortly after, a Levite, a person who would spend his life serving God in his temple, also saw the man and passed by on the other side. Why did they do that? Why did they pass by on the other side? Possibly because they were busy and they had other things to do. Maybe they didn’t want to become ceremonially unclean as they were about to serve in the temple. We’re not quite sure exactly why those two religious leaders passed by on the other side, but we are sure and what we do know for sure is that they left someone they consider to be a neighbor, a fellow Israelite half dead on the side of the road. Then a third man came upon the beaten man. This man is only described as a Samaritan and it should be noted that the Samaritans and the Israelites did not really get along with one another. I think it’s fair to say that in general they typically hated each other, but this Samaritan was the one who helped the beaten man. He not only helped the beaten man, but he helped the beaten man to the fullest extent possible. He bandaged his wounds. He even paid for his hotel stay and offered to pay for any additional medical expenses that the man might have incurred. So Jesus then asked the expert in the law which of these three treated the man like the neighbor. I don’t think the expert in the law even had the stomach to admit that it was the Samaritan. I don’t think he could bring himself to say the Samaritan. So he simply said the one who had mercy on him. So Jesus said go and do likewise. With this parable, Jesus forced the man to realize that he had not viewed everyone as his neighbor. He had not treated everyone as his neighbor. He could not on his own earn his way into eternal life. And the same is true for all of us brothers and sisters. None of us can earn our way into eternal life. And like we talked about earlier, we also need to be reminded of the fact that we have not always treated everyone as our neighbor. Again, Jesus says go and do likewise. And he gives us the example to follow. Since we could not perfectly love everyone, Jesus stepped into our shoes and perfectly loved the entire world in our place. Being true God, perfect and holy in every single way, Jesus could not have been any more different than more different from us, from all of us. We are absolutely the opposite of what Jesus is. We are tainted with the original stain of sin. And what is worse, we too can do nothing on our own to merit or inherit eternal life. We were born more than half dead. We were born seriously to die an eternal death. But Jesus rescued us from that death. He rescued us from the death that we could not save ourselves from. He rescued us from the death that we truly deserve because of all of our sins. Jesus could have left us half dead on the road and crossed by on the other side. He could have had no mercy on us and said, “Oh, well, too bad. They’ll figure it out on their own.” But instead, no, Jesus had mercy on us and saved us. And not only us, but Jesus died for the sins of the entire world. Therefore, brothers and sisters, motivated by the love and the mercy that Jesus has shown to each and every one of us, he says to us, “Go and do likewise.” I started this morning by asking the question, “Who is our neighbor?” There are those who we naturally consider to be our neighbors, family, friends, maybe the nice couple down the block, maybe people who have even been nice to us first. But what have we learned this morning? That every single person in the world is our neighbor. Every single person in this world we should treat with love and kindness and mercy. Even those people who we wouldn’t normally consider to be our neighbors, to those very people, we need to reflect Jesus and his love. And so, brothers and sisters, let us show our love to the entire world. Let us show that love by serving our neighbors. Let us show that love that our lives might be God-lived lives. Amen.