Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke 10:25-37

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Introduction

About 32 years ago we were in Winnipeg to attend my aunt’s wedding on a Saturday.

After the wedding, we headed back home to The Pas, which was about an 8 hour drive, because I had to preach on Sunday morning.

We had two children with us, one was a baby and was in the front seat (this was before all the seat belt and child restraint laws) and the other was 2 and was in the back seat.

On two occasions as we were traveling late at night, we came across hitchhikers on lonely stretches of road.

What were we to do?

They needed help, but we felt vulnerable.

On one occasion, I drove past the man, then stopped, got out and told Carla if there appeared to be any trouble she should drive away.

Well, we were able to help both people we picked up without any problem.

Although we know that we need to help people in need, helping them can be complicated by all kinds of issues such as our urgency, safety, prejudices and other issues.

As people who have been Christians for a long time we all know the story of the Good Samaritan.

We know that it calls for us to help those in need.

The story invites us to transcend fears and prejudices in order to help.

But have we really learned the lesson completely?

Are there blind spots in our caring for others?

I am learning that we all have blind spots.

As we were preparing our house for sale, we were looking at it with different eyes.

We realized that things that we had been comfortably living with all these years could be a problem for someone buying the house, so I fixed things that we never considered a problem.

Do we also have blind spots in our response to people in need?

One of the reasons why Jesus used parables to convey truth is because they contain twists which force us to face blind spots.

Certainly the story of the lawyer’s conversation with Jesus and the parable with which Jesus responded to some of his questions contains such twists and forces the listener to think about things in different ways.

This morning, I would like to re-examine Luke 10:25-37 and I hope that we can have some of our blind spots removed so that we can respond in a godly way when we see people in need.

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I.                   What Must I Do To Inherit Eternal Life?

The account begins with the question of a lawyer, or as NIV well puts it, an “expert in the law.”

He was not necessarily an expert in civil law, but rather in the law found in the Word of God.

In other words, he knew the Bible well.

He asked a question which was discussed by these scholars, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The fact that he “stood up” to test Jesus is interesting.

He would certainly have viewed himself as superior to Jesus in regards to such questions.

In those days, it was normal for a teacher to sit and for the students to stand in respect for the teacher.

The fact that he stood up was, I believe, only posturing because although he puts himself in the place of a student before Jesus, yet he was testing Jesus.

His posture conveyed that he was willing to learn but his question conveyed that he wanted to know if Jesus knew the right answer.

Jesus allowed him to do this, but turned the question back on him.

He answered with a summary which we have come to know as the great commandment.

The statement about loving God is found in Deuteronomy 6:5 from the most famous verse known to the Jews.

The second part comes from Leviticus 19:18.

Love for God and love for neighbor is a solid and faithful summary of the whole law.

Jesus affirmed his answer and counseled him that if he would do that he would live.

The problem we have with this answer is that it goes contrary to what we understand of the answer which Jesus came to give the world.

Through his death and resurrection the central message of His gospel is that the way to inherit eternal life is through faith in Jesus Christ.

Why did Jesus not answer the question that way as he had so many other times, like when Nicodemus came to him?

He probably gave the answer he did because the lawyer wasn’t ready to hear that Jesus was the way to eternal life.

Although the lawyer came to test Jesus, the first twist in this text is that Jesus is actually testing the lawyer.

As the lawyer heard the answer of Jesus, he began to evaluate his own life.

He asked himself, “Can I love God like that?” His answer was likely that he could.

He was fully engaged in worship of God.

Then he asked himself if he could love his neighbor.

The answer to this question was not so clear to him because it depended on the definition of neighbor.

So he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

By asking this question, he implied that there could be a non-neighbor and in his mind there was because the Jews believed that some people were outside of God’s care.

When he asked this question it becomes clear that the lawyer was not completely sure that he could actually obey this command completely.

This was the first step towards coming to the place where he would be able to understand that in order to inherit eternal life he could not do it by obedience to the law but needed a Saviour.

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II.

Who Is My Neighbor?

In order to reinforce this impression, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan which revealed that he was not obeying this commandment.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is about 17 miles long.

On level ground, such a trip would take perhaps half a day, but the landscape was anything but normal.

Jerusalem is about 700 meters above sea level and Jericho is about 250 meters below sea level.

So in these 17 miles the road drops about 950 meters or about 3000 feet through very rugged territory.

It was a rugged road and great for robbers to hide and ambush people.

A man travelled along this road and as he did, robbers accosted him, took all his belongings, stripped him of his clothes, beat him and left him half dead.

The man was in a desperate situation and needed help.

Bailey points out that in those days you could discover where a person was from by two main sources, his clothes and his speech.

In asking the question, “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer assumed that it was possible to identify who should be helped and who should not be helped.

This man was both naked and unconscious and so had none of the marks about him which would help identify whether a good Jew should help him or not and that presented the first problem in knowing how to answer the question, “who is my neighbor?”

In this setting, a priest came along but quickly passed by on the other side.

Some have suggested that he had good reason not to stop.

One reason was that he didn’t know who the man was.

Another reason might have been that he was a priest who wouldn’t want to defile himself by contact with a dead body, just in case the man died on his hands.

But every excuse can easily be answered.

For example, he was going from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Many priests lived in Jericho and so he was likely on his way home after a term of service in the temple.

Therefore, he would not have had to be concerned about defilement of this kind.

The Levite, who was a temple servant in charge of worship and support services in the temple made the same decision.

The third person, who came along, responded in a completely different way.

The story is set up as a rebuke to the failure of the priest, the Levite, the lawyer and particularly the system they stood for.

The story shows that when we encounter a person in need, we are called to help them.

The religious establishment missed the opportunity, the outsider got it.

Ritualism and religion prevented compassion and Jesus’ parable is a rebuke to hard, uncaring religion.

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III.

Who Is A Neighbor?

But another twist in the story is what really makes the point clear.

The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

When he asked this question, he wanted to know, “who don’t I have to care for?”

After telling the story, Jesus asked the lawyer a question.

Jesus mentioned all three characters in the story, but notice that he asked a different question and the change in the question causes us to think.

What is the difference in the questions?

If the question is, “Who is my neighbor?”

then what is being asked is, “Is there someone whom I can avoid loving?”

“What are the categories which allow me to bypass a situation of need?”

The question Jesus asked changes things.

Instead of looking at who our neighbor is before we help them, the question, changes to ask, “Am I being a neighbor?”

When the question is asked like that, it makes no difference who the other person is.

If a person is in need, we are called to offer the assistance that we are able to offer.

The question becomes not who do I help, but am I helping?

The lawyer answered correctly.

The one showing mercy was the neighbor.

As he answered this question it becomes clear that the test has been turned on its head.

He had been testing Jesus, but with this question, once again, Jesus was testing him.