For Sunday, July 10, 2016 – Luke 10:25-37
A brief exchange between a religious legal expert and Jesus is enough to hear again how simple and uncomplicated is God’s way. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” the lawyer asks. We too hear people say that what matters most is to be saved—but what is that exactly? Saved from what? Saved for what? Jesus asks the lawyer what does his own study of the law tell him, what is written there? The lawyer can recite it as easily as any well-versed Vacation Bible School child: “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 neighbor as yourself.” Perfectly stated. It really is as simple as that.
But not for long. “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asks, either sincerely perplexed or fishing for a more complicated answer. And Jesus tells the now well-known tale of the Good Samaritan. A man is robbed on the Jericho road, stripped, beaten and left for dead. A priest and a Levite, considered holy and good, pass him by, but a Samaritan, outcast and rejected, gives assistance. He bandages the man, carries him to the shelter of an inn and takes care of him, paying his way for days to come. Which one, Jesus asks, is the true neighbor? Even the lawyer knows it is the Samaritan, the one who is loved least but has loved another the most.
No matter what our understanding of faith might be or become, we all start somewhere. We all have a foundational truth, a first love, from which we begin. We begin in fear or trust, in competition or cooperation, in spite or compassion. Do you have a founding desire to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and to love your neighbor as well as yourself? How does it show itself in action? Our first love is only as real as what we do, how we respond, the kinds of lives we end up living. If you followed me out on the road today, what sort of love would you see in me? Would you see me render aid or pass on by, condemn or show mercy? Will I let you come close enough to see who I really am and, when you see, to show your mercy to me?
