The neighbour - Luke 10:25-37

A practice sermon written to shadow the sermon series at my church on "Stories on the edge" Oct09

We are starting this study in Luke 10 so its worth just backtracking a second to see where we have come from. Luke provides us with one of the fullest accounts of Jesus' life, death and ministry right from the foretelling of his cousin John's birth through his own foretelling and birth, presentation at the temple, as a boy at the temple, baptism, temptation, ministry in Galilee, journey to Jerusalem, ministry in Jerusalem, death, burial and resurrection. Where we find ourselves here is a turning point in Jesus' ministry pivoted by the verse 9:51

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
Luke 9:51

All the stories and parables between this verse and 19:28 the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem take place on the journey. A significant theme in this section is Jesus teaching his disciples and preparing them for his departure. For the journey through Samaria to Jerusalem in Judea Jesus gathered seventy two men willing to follow him and sent them ahead into all the towns he would visit on the way. He sent them out in pairs to heal the sick and proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God, the coming fulfilment of the gospel!

After they had completed what Jesus asked them to do the seventy two returned full of joy. Jesus warned them that their joy should not be in the authority he had given them but in their eternal salvation. He put things in perspective, the coming of the Kingdom of God, is a time in history that the prophets and kings of old had longed to see. The disciples were blessed to be a part of Jesus' mission. We too are blessed, we live in a time when God's plan for salvation is more revealed that at any other point in history.

It was at this point, perhaps the disciples and Jesus were all still sitting around, perhaps still swapping stories of their experiences and a man stood up close by. Perhaps this man had heard some of the disciples speaking about the coming kingdom of God and that they spoke of Jesus. This man was a lawyer whose job it was in that time to interpret and teach the people Mosaic law. He stood up to test Jesus, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

The theme of the Bible is life and that life is relational. Right from the very beginning the life God breathed into Adam was inseparably linked to relationship. That relationship required of Adam obedience, as the correct response to God his creator. He was charged with the job of working and keeping the garden of Eden. God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The first covenant was set bringing together two parties in a relationship of creator and creature. The consequence of keeping this covenant was life, connection to God in continued relationship. The consequence of breaking this covenant was death, separation from God in broken relationship. This relationship was broken the moment Adam ate the fruit from the tree, the separation of death was the result.

The rest of the Scriptures details God plan of salvation for this broken relationship, this death. God continues to be a covenant maker requiring from his people a relational response of obedience that this life, this relationship might be restored.

“And now, O Israel, listen to the statute and the decrees that I am teaching you,
and do them, that you may live...”
Deuteronomy 4:1a

The concept of eternal life alluded to in the psalms and spoken of in Daniel 12 is only brought to clear understanding through Jesus' teaching. The lawyers question is fair, as an interpreter of the Mosaic law he wishes to test Jesus' scriptural basis for this teaching of eternal life he is spreading through his Disciples. If Jesus' really is sent from God his teaching must align with what God has already revealed through the prophets.

Jesus turns the question back to the lawyer “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The answer to that question is easy for one who has studied the law as this man obviously had. The Old Testament law was often summed up in the following two statements. “You shall love the Lord you 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.” The inheritance and the covenants promised by God were always linked to the Jewish people following the law. Following this law that the lawyer here summed up so well. It was this obedience in following the law that was liked to a promised blessing and life from God. Jesus confirms it. This was the perfect answer. Following this is what would have prevented Adam from eating the fruit. Following this is what would have prevented the nation of Israel from continually messing up. “Do this and you will live” Jesus said. If Adam had followed these commands he would have lived in continued relationship with God. If the nation of Israel had followed these commands they would have lived in continued relationship with God.

What happens next is very telling and it's this statement that reveals the true heart of the lawyer. “But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbour?'” Although the lawyer could accurately give the answer to his own question he did not fully appreciated what it meant. The majority of the Sadducee's and the Pharisees lived by the letter of this law but not by the spirit of the law. They had in essence taken the relational aspect out of the law and therefore completely missed what life is all about, relationship. In asking Jesus, “And who is my neighbour” the lawyer wanted a formula by which to live. He wanted to know which people he was required to love and which he didn't have to. This type of reading of the law is extremely self centred. All he wanted was a list of do's and don't's so that he could tick them all off and feel proud of his achievements. He had turned God's laws into a religion. What Jesus was about to demonstrate in his parable of the good Samaritan was the difference between religion and relationship.

We all know the story so well. A man journeys the dangerous path from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was attacked by robbers who stripped him, beat him and left him for dead. By chance there happened to be a priest passing that way, the equivalent of a church pastor. What a stroke of fortune surely a priest would see the man in distress and stop to help but he doesn't instead he passes by the man by on the other side of the road. Then by chance a Levite was passing by, the equivalent of a church deacon. What a stroke of fortune surely a Levite would see the man in distress and stop to help but he too doesn't. Instead he passes by the man by on the other side of the road. But a Samaritan as he journeyed the road came to where the man lay and had compassion. Perhaps today's equivalent is a suicide bomber, someone completely unexpected to show compassion. The compassion that the Samaritan had equates to the spirit of that Law, it equates to the relational aspect of the law. When you live your life religiously to the letter of the law as the lawyer was you leave no room for the relational, no room for life.

In John we see Jesus speaking to such as these when they looked to kill him.

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”
John 5:39-40

Religious people although they read the same scriptures as others see only the letter of the law and miss that fact that the whole law, the whole of scripture is relational. The whole of Scripture speaks of Jesus because the whole of scriptures speaks of God the Father's salvation plan to restore that broken relationship. He does it by the most incredible selfless act heaven and earth has ever witness. While we were still sinners Jesus died in our place taking the punishment for our sin and religiousness.
So what must we do to inherit eternal life? We must repent of not just our sin but our religiousness and we need to enter into this restored relationship that Jesus has made possible through his sacrifice! Does this mean that the law is not require, by no means. It means that the law is to be followed on a relational basis. The lawyer had it right. In order for us to have eternal life we need to:

“...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.”






Additional thoughts on eternal life


I think most of us are familiar with the passage in Ecclesiastes 3. A time for everything. There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven, writes the author of Ecclesiastes. But then he questions as we all question, what is the point to it all. “What does the worker gain from his toil?” The author puts into words what few of us ever manage to understand. God has put a burden on our hearts and it is this. Everything has its right place in life, there is a time for all things, everything God has made is beautiful in its time. But God has also set in our hearts eternity. In our hearts is another dimension that cannot be satisfied in this one. We are 3D people living in a 2D world and it aches! We look around us and we feel there is a meaning to life that is just not quite achievable. If we ever need proof on just how unachievable it is Ecclesiastes is the perfect book to read.

When we think about eternity we often make the mistake of equating it with the word infinite. Eternity is not infinite time. If we lived in a 2D world and kept running in one direction, infinitely, we would never reach the third dimension. A flat piece of paper will never have a volume no matter how big it is. Eternity is a different dimension. In first Peter we get a glimpse of what this looks like. One day is like a thousand years. That is fair enough, that is something we can grasps a simple ratio of 1:1000 but then he continues. A thousand years is like a day and our brain suddenly flips out. What Peter is saying is that every point of eternity contains every point of time.

So here we sit eternal beings in a dimension that cannot satisfy. The author rightly states that while we are here “there is nothing better for man than to be joyful and do good.” But God put this eternity in our hearts so that this is never enough. He puts eternity in our heart so that we will search for him, that we would cling to him in reverence and fear. God is in eternity his is eternal and he has put eternity in our hearts as a stamp of ownership so that we never forget where we came from and where we are going! Life only makes sense when we know this and as the author of Ecclesiastes discovers without this.

“'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'”
Ecclesiastes 1:2

In Daniel we see confirmed that where we are headed is eternity but here it seems two forms of eternity exist.

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel 12:2

Here we are first introduced to the concept of eternal life. Life as we have discussed in the last two weeks at length is personal. Life, reality is all based on relationships. Those relationships exist in two planes, vertical and horizontal. Our relationship with God and our relationship with one another. So what is eternal life. Eternal life is life, that is our relationship with God and one another, lived in eternity. Before the fall we lived life in perfect relationship with God and with one another spiritually in eternity and also physically in space and time. At the fall in Genesis 3 those spiritual relationships in eternity we broken. The Bible describes it as spiritual death. Broken relationship, separation of the two relational parties is death. This spiritual death should have lead to a physical death but for the Grace of God. God sustains us physically for a time in order that his work of salvation be accomplished. God through his work of Salvation Jesus dying on the cross has made it possible for us to be spiritually re-born back into eternal life.

If we do not accept this work of salvation for ourselves we will continue in spiritual death living physically in space and time until we physically die at which point we will live permanently in spiritual death in eternity. We will be separated from relationship with God and one another permanently in eternity. If we do accept this work of salvation for ourselves we are re-born spiritually in eternity whilst still here in space and time physically. When we die here physically we will then continue to live spiritually in eternity. The Bible calls this eternal life!