By Benjamin Stubblefield, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Christian Studies, University of Mobile
Neighbors?
Luke 10:25–37
The Exchange (25–29)
“I’ve told you a hundred times not to sit on the arm of that chair!” I’ll admit I said that probably a little too forcefully to my 7-year-old daughter. I was frustrated that I had to (again) correct her on how to treat our furniture. To this she calmly replied, “Daddy, I’m not sitting on the arm of the chair; I’m crawling over the arm of the chair.” “Hmm,” I mumbled. “You have the makings of a future lawyer, but you’re still in trouble.” While it’s undeniably true that she’s a lot cuter than our lawyer in Luke 10, my daughter’s strategy for self-justification and his are very much the same.
He knew the law; he respected the law; he wanted to keep the law. But he approached the law like a complex, coded system of legal definitions and technicalities. And what he’s asking Jesus to do is to help him limit the sorts of people whom he’s legally obligated to love.
Although unstated in the text, it’s reasonable to suppose that, like most of his countrymen, our lawyer here has a few enemies, rivals and a general animus toward Romans and Samaritans. But if they aren’t his “neighbors,” then he’s perfectly justified before God to spite them. “The law,” he might argue, “even permits it.” He’s zeroing in on the letter of the law and neglecting its intent.
But Jesus is having none of it. Rather, the Master Teacher exposes his attempt to evade the spirit of the law and falsely justify himself. It’s a familiar experience to all of us, isn’t it? The Holy Spirit reveals our unrighteousness (John 16:10), no matter how cleverly we try to hide it by self-justification.
How wonderful is the miracle of heaven-sent conviction that leads us to seek a proper Savior!
The Story (30–35)
Theologian Tim Keller points out that what’s fascinating about this story is that it is different from how some of us might have tried it. I think I would have reversed the roles of the characters, so that the Jewish man is the hero and the Samaritan was receiving care, not giving it. And I would end it with something like, “You should love people like that Jewish man loved the Samaritan. That’s how God wants you to treat everyone.”
But Jesus does it better. Because the man on the road is a Jewish man, the Jewish lawyer more naturally identifies with him. Jesus is therefore pushing him to see himself on the road, where no religious officer or countrymen will help because perhaps they’re not technically required to consider him their “neighbor.” Jesus forces him to think, “Do you know what you would want, in that moment? You would want someone, anyone to love you.”
And that’s the genius of Jesus’ parable. Jesus doesn’t get sucked into a fruitless discussion over whom the law requires us to love and allows us to hate. His parable forces the lawyer to consider not, “How should I treat others?” but, “How would I want others to treat me?” Note how toward the end of the passage, Jesus doesn’t answer the lawyer’s initial question but flips it on him. In other words, Jesus is teaching the lawyer to focus less on figuring out who he does not have to love and focus more on loving others in a way that he hopes others would love him.
The Challenge (36–37)
The call to discipleship is a call to mercy. More radically, it is a call to show as much compassion as you would hope to be shown yourself. And there is the real challenge.
Weren’t we all ruined sinners, left for dead, (as the hymn goes) “weak and wounded, sick and sore”? Nobody like us could help us — no religiosity, no club, no creed. What we needed was an Outsider. A Foreigner, sent from heaven, who would, at great personal cost to Himself, help, heal, love.
That’s how we needed to be, hoped to be and are loved in Christ, our “Good Samaritan.” And that’s the quality of neighborliness that He calls us to show all others.
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