Who is my neighbour?

So that's Luke chapter 10, verse 25 to 42.

Luke 10:25–42

On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.

! Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

What is written in the law, he replied, how do you read it?

He answered, 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 love your neighbor as yourself.

You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. Do this and you will live.

But he wanted to justify himself. So he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

In reply, Jesus said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers.

They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was.

And when he saw him, he took pity on him.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.

Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.

The next day, he took two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper.

Look after him, he said.

And when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.

Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?

The expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him.

Jesus told him, go and do likewise.

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he said.

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.

She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?

Tell her to help me.

Martha, Martha, the Lord replied.

You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

I'll now hand over to Derek.

Well, thank you, Dad.

I was going to say Roddy, but it just felt unnatural, so I'm going to settle with Dad.

It's a real joy to be here tonight with you.

As has been said before, I grew up in this church, and many of the saints helped me in my journey of faith.

I'm going to call them pews, because I still find it strange to call them seats, sat in these pews in front of me here.

And we got married in this church.

It was a very special place for my wife Lynn and I.

And so every evening in our home, my wife Lynn and I, we have a really beautiful privilege.

We sit down with our son, Ruri.

We read him a story.

Ideally one, but often it goes into two or three.

And as a parent, you quickly realize how stories shape the way children understand the world.

But there's a terrifying danger when we approach the Word of God the same way we approach the nursery bookshelf.

There's a massive difference between reading a comforting bedtime story to a toddler and listening to the disruptive parable of Jesus.

And this parable of the Good Samaritan is arguably one of the most familiar stories in the entire Bible.

Many of us have first encountered it in Sunday school or a kid's Bible, and we all know the story with illustrations.

We can picture the scene now.

The priest, the Levite, the wounded man, and finally the compassionate Samaritan and his donkey.

But familiarity breeds a dangerous kind of blindness.

When we think we know a story inside out, we stop letting it cut us.

We stop letting it teach us.

We treat this text like a predictable fable.

But Jesus didn't tell parables to tuck us into bed at night.

He told them to start a revolution in the human heart.

And we often reduce the Good Samaritan to one simple lesson.

Be kind or be compassionate.

Nothing more than a comfortable moral fable.

And that's the wrong way of the story.

And think for a moment about cinema history.

I don't apologize for this whatsoever.

So imagine sitting down to watch Star Wars Empire Strikes Back.

That's the third or sixth film, depending on how you look at things.

Instead of beginning at the start of the film, you skip straight to the climactic scene where Darth Vader reveals his identity to Luke Skywalker.

You miss the opening crawl that sets the stage of everything.

You miss everything that gives the scene its meaning.

The scene would still be dramatic.

Yes, we wouldn't carry the emotional shock or the narrative weight that it's designed to carry.

And Luke, the gospel writer that is, wants us to read his gospel in exactly the same way.

Every episode sits in a larger story.

And if we jump straight to the Good Samaritan without paying attention to what comes before it, what comes after it, we'll miss why Jesus told it in the first place.

And one thing that's really easy to miss is where this story sits in Luke's gospel.

And I would contend that Luke's gospel is almost like a book in two halves.

Up until chapter 9, Jesus' ministry is centered mainly around Galilee.

Healing the sick, feeding the crowds, walking waters, establishing his ministry.

Then everything changes in chapter 9, what we call chapter 9 and verse 51, where it says,

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go towards Jerusalem.

And from that moment on, Jesus is on a deliberate, unrelenting journey to the cross.

And almost everything that follows, including this parable, is told in the road towards Calvary.

So the one who says go and do likewise is first and foremost one who's going to do for us what we can never do for ourselves.

And that's exactly how Luke wants us to read it.

Right at the beginning of Luke's gospel, he tells us he's writing an orderly account so that we may know with certainty the truth about Jesus.

This is not a story of disconnected stories, not a greatest hits.

On this inspiration of the Holy Spirit, every episode is carefully arranged to reveal who Jesus is and why he came.

So the Good Samaritan does not simply appear in what we call chapter 10.

Luke has placed it here for a reason.

And to understand the parable, we must read it as part of the larger journey towards the cross.

And Luke 10 itself, this chapter, is a beautifully connected narrative loop.

As we've read tonight,

But notice the movement here.

So before we ask, what does the Good Samaritan teach?

We should first ask, why did Luke place it here?

And this is not a story about kindness.

It's Jesus' response to a self-righteous man who wants eternal life on his own terms.

And tonight we're going to follow the passage that Luke presents it.

We'll begin to question the question that reveals the lawyer's heart.

Then we'll look at the story that turns it upside down.

And finally, we'll see the Savior to whom the story oddly points.

And only then will we understand what it means to go and do likewise.

So let's look at our first movement, the kingdom question.

And right after Jesus declares,

Rejoice, your name's written in heaven.

An expert in the law stands up with a very different mindset.

Now this isn't a lawyer like we think.

It's more like a scribe.

Somebody knows the law of Moses very, very well.

And the disciples received the kingdom as a gift.

The law approached it as something that can be earned.

He asked the defining question of almost every religion.

And let's look at that question in verse 25.

Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

The question sounds almost admirable on the surface.

And we ask versions of this question all the time.

We hear it almost every single week.

It's a person who says, well, if there is a God, I'm a decent person.

I pay my taxes.

I don't hurt anyone.

I give my bit to charity.

Should that be enough to get me to heaven?

Or the religious version.

One who whispers, I attend church.

I read my Bible.

I try to be a good person.

Surely God is satisfied with my performance.

Yes, there's already a profound problem hidden within his words.

Luke is vocabulary.

He covers the word do with inherit.

Now, inherit is not something you can usually earn through personal achievement.

It's something you receive by birth or relationship.

You don't get inheritance necessarily by working hard for a stranger.

You get it because a parent or person loves you so much,

they wrote you into the will.

By asking what he's doing to inherit,

he reveals a deeply transactional heart.

He wants a list.

He wants a spiritual checklist he can take off,

present to God, and demand payout.

But Jesus, massively turning his tables,

refuses to give him the checklist.

He directs him straight back to the very law he claims to be an expert in.

Verse 26.

What is written in the law?

How do you read it?

The lawyer answers flawlessly.

He pulls together two monumental texts of the Old Testament.

He gives a textbook answer.

He quotes the Shema from Deuteronomy 6.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

And weave it seamlessly with the holiness code from Politicus 19.

And love your neighbor as yourself.

It's a brilliant theological synthesis,

and rightly called the great commandment.

And Jesus responds simply in verse 28,

the lion should pierce him the core.

You've answered correctly.

Do this, and you will live.

And that actually stopped us in our tracks.

Jesus does not talk about grace here.

He doesn't say, well, don't worry about law.

Just believe in me.

He holds up the mirror of God's perfect law to the lawyer.

We're also interrupting Jesus here.

We want to raise our hands and say,

oh no, Jesus, you can't tell him this.

You can't tell him to do this and live.

Our minds raise the words of the apostle,

who says time and time again,

a person not justified by the works of the law,

but by faith in Jesus Christ.

So why does Jesus tell him to keep the law to live?

Is Jesus teaching us salvation by works?

Not at all.

He's doing something brilliant,

something subversively brilliant.

He'll recognize this man knows all the answers,

knows all the answers from the Bible,

or the Hebrew Bible.

But he has a moral problem.

He thinks he's keeping the law perfectly.

He thinks the law is his ladder to heaven.

So Jesus points to this ladder and says,

fine, if you want to get to heaven by your own performance,

the standard is total, flawless,

uninterrupted love for God and neighbor.

Go ahead, just do it.

Jesus is exposing the law's ultimate purpose here.

The law was never meant,

it was never given to us to provide salvation.

It was never given to expose our sin.

It was a diagnostic tool, not the cure.

It's meant to show the lawyer and show us

utter failure to love perfectly,

driving us to our knees to beg for mercy.

And knowing deep down he hasn't loved perfectly,

but desperately to maintain his clean reputation,

he tries to justify himself.

Verse 29, he asks,

and who is my neighbor?

The lawyer knows a great commandment,

but what he wants now is a small print exception.

And see what he's doing here?

He's looking for boundary lines.

He's asking,

how tight can I draw my circle, Jesus?

Where does my obligation end?

He didn't want to act.

He wants to debate definitions,

so he can limit his liability and keep his distance.

And if we're honest,

the lawyer's attempt to redefine neighbor

isn't just an ancient problem,

it's ours as well.

The lawyer wants to know who he can leave outside the circle of love.

And before we're too hard on him,

perhaps we should ask ourselves this,

who sits outside ours?

The calling we want to avoid,

the family members hurt us,

the neighbor whose lifestyle we disapprove of,

the person living rough for whom

we hope someone else will stop and help.

We're often happier discussing mercy

than showing mercy.

It means we can avoid looking across the street

as someone we'd rather ignore.

And that brings us to our second quest,

our second movement,

the kingdom lifestyle.

Now, the lawyers,

the teachers,

the lawyers asked a question.

Instead of giving a sterile answer,

Jesus tells a story

that drops like a bomb in a room.

He describes a nameless man

walking down notorious roads from Jerusalem

all the way in the heights,

down to Jericho,

all the way below sea level.

This road is known as the Path of Blood,

and it was notorious.

A steep, 70-mile descent

through the Dujain wilderness

full of caves and blind corners.

The perfect place for bandits.

You're trapped alone,

you're taking serious risk.

The traveling Jesus story loses that gamble.

He's attacked,

stripped of his clothes,

his social status,

identity, and now erased,

beaten until he's unconscious,

and left half dead in dirt.

But then,

hope passes by.

The priest comes,

then a Levite.

They both see this bloody mess,

and the text says,

both pass by on the other side.

Now, we shouldn't assume

that these men were cartoon villains.

It doesn't say they're wicked.

It doesn't infer that.

They look to be

respectfully religious people.

They were perhaps heading home

after completing their sacred duties

in the temple.

I need excellent movements

to keep on moving.

But notice this.

Jesus doesn't tell us why

they didn't stop.

He leaves their motives

completely unexplained.

He doesn't tell us

what they were thinking.

He could have,

but he didn't.

The point isn't why they failed.

The point is simply

that they saw the man,

calculated risk,

and kept going.

So, whatever their reasons,

compassion lost to convenience.

Then Jesus turns

the whole story upside down

with two shocking words

in verse 33.

But a Samaritan.

His listeners

were gasped and disbelief,

probably even disgust.

To a first-century Jew,

a good Samaritan

was a jarring,

offensive contradiction.

Sent to the bitter,

violent, religious

hatred sat between them.

So, good Samaritan sounded

like a holy criminal.

And that's lost its weight

for us today.

Because good Samaritan for us

is a positive term

used for many organizations.

But to a Jew,

that had been deeply offensive.

So, Jesus takes the very person

his listeners and lawyer

would cross the street to avoid

and makes them the definition

of God's love in action.

And when Samaritan sees a victim,

the NAV tells us exactly

what happened next.

The text says,

he took pity on him.

In the Greek language

of the New Testament,

this isn't polite sympathy.

It literally describes

a deep, physical,

heartfelt sorrow

so overwhelming

that violently drives

a person to act.

And if you track

this specific type of compassion

through the New Testament,

you discover something breathtaking

almost every single time

this word is used.

It's reserved

on exclusively

to describe

the divine pity

of Jesus Christ himself.

This is Jesus' own compassion

right here.

It wasn't cheap sentimentality.

It was incredibly costly.

Notice what Samaritan sacrifices.

He sacrifices safety

to treat the wounds.

He sacrifices property

pouring expensive oil

and wine

and putting the man

on his own donkey

while he walks

in the dirt.

and he also sacrifices

finances.

He left two denarii,

two full-day wages

for labor

with the innkeeper.

He doesn't stop there.

He leaves an open tab

and in verse 35

he tells the innkeeper,

wherever you spend

when I come back

I will repay you.

He assumes unlimited liability

for a stranger

who if he were conscious

would likely despise him.

And it's precisely

where the story

becomes deeply

painfully uncomfortable.

If we're completely honest

for ourselves

we want to see ourselves

as a hero.

We want to see ourselves

as a Samaritan

helping the poor,

helping everyone in need.

But if we read the story

honestly

we see a reflection

not in the sacrificial

reactions of the Samaritan

but in the hurried

self-justifying reactions

of the priest

and the Levite.

We see the human mess

around us.

We recognize the inconvenience.

We calculate

the personal cost to me.

We find a deeply logical

perhaps spiritual reason

to quite like slip over

to the other side of the road.

We look at the brokenness

of our city.

We can't fail to see it.

And we think

the council should handle that.

Or that's what charities are for.

It's not my job

to sort it out.

We weaponize

our good boundaries

to excuse

our total lack

of mercy.

Now is Jesus saying

that every time

when I go out

for lunch tomorrow

at work

and I pass someone

sleeping rough

I am personally required

to stop

put them into a travel lodge

pay for their accommodation

and meet every one

of their needs?

Is that the point

of the parable?

Not at all.

Jesus is not giving us

a new legal checklist.

He's not placing

one form

of self-righteousness

with another.

He's exposing hearts

that are always looking

for the minimum requirement.

The question isn't

that must I help

every person I meet?

The question is

has God's mercy

so changed my heart

that I'm becoming

the kind of person

that moves towards need

rather than away from it?

And some of us

become experts

at loving humanity

while avoiding

actual humans.

The law is looking

for the minimum requirement

of love

and we so often

do the same.

We look for reasons

not to love

rather than for opportunities

to love.

And this leads us

to our third

and final movement

the greater Samaritan.

And when Jesus

finishes the story

he turns the Lord's

question on its head.

Look at verses

36 and 37.

The Lord asked

who's my neighbor?

Jesus asked instead

which of these three

proved to be

a neighbor?

Do you see this shift here?

Jesus changes

the question entirely.

Not who deserves

my love

but am I becoming

the sort of person

who loves?

The lawyer is so

uncomfortable

with his answer

they can't even

bring themselves

to say the word

Samaritan.

He simply mutters

the one who had

mercy on him.

And Jesus says

go and do likewise.

And if we leave

the sermon here

we've missed

the whole point

of the sermon

and more importantly

we've missed

the whole point

of the gospel.

This parable

is just a moral checklist.

Jesus is simply

telling us

you have to try harder

give more money

be perfectly loving

the Samaritan

to turn heaven

then Jesus

hasn't given us

good news.

He's simply given us

another impossible standard.

If going to likewise

is a condition

for inheriting

eternal life

then this parable

should not sit

with your children's books.

It belongs

in the horror section.

Because once you realize

what Jesus is actually demanding

it's because none of us

has loved it this perfectly.

And

we have to be very careful

with this as well.

It's right to say

the action of the Samaritan

is not the way

to life

but it is for those

who love God

with undiluted love

to be a way

of life.

And Jesus is not

suggesting for a moment

that he's setting aside

all that he's come to do.

No.

The real test

is a bit like

the parable of the sower.

The seed falls

on different kinds

of ground.

The seed that

falls on good soil

brings forth fruit.

So evidence

is in the fruitfulness.

Not the dramatic nature

of the response.

In other words

the Samaritan's actions

do not hurt in them life.

They reveal the kind of life

that's already at work.

So mercy is not

the root

of our salvation

it's the fruit

of our salvation.

We're not saved

because we love

our neighbor perfectly.

When Christ

has shown mercy to us

that mercy begins

to reshape

the way we see

and the way we respond

to the person

lying in front of us.

Because once you realize

what Jesus

is actually demanding

you realize

it's such an impossible

standard to live up to.

When we read

the Good Samaritan

to the ends of the cross

we realize

the profound depth

of what Jesus is doing.

The story is not

primarily about

what we must do

it first shows us

what Christ has done.

In the grand narrative

of salvation

we are not the Samaritan

we're not the priest

we're not the Levite

we're the bloody

beaten traveler

dying in the dirt

entirely unable

to save ourselves.

Until we see ourselves

lying helpless

in the dust

we'll never marvel

at what Christ

has done for us

that he stopped for us

and went on that cross

for us.

The priest and Levite

teach us a painful truth

religion cannot save.

The law can expose

our need

but cannot rescue us.

We were

spiritually bankrupt

stripped of righteousness

and helpless.

The good Samaritan

shows what love

looks like.

Christ

that great Samaritan

shows what

saving love

does.

And look how beautifully

Christ fills the shadow.

The Samaritan

came to the wounded man

Christ came down

from heaven to us.

The Samaritan

bound up wounds

Christ heals

the wounds

of our sin.

The Samaritan

gave his own resources

Christ gave his blood

on Calvary.

The Samaritan

paid the cross

Christ paid her debt

in full

crying

it is finished.

Now the Samaritan

left two denarii

with the innkeeper

and some of our

early church fathers

saw in this

a beautiful illustration.

Perhaps not necessarily

what Luke was intending here

but it's a fitting reminder

that Christ

our great Samaritan

has given his church

his words

and his sacraments

the common means of grace

to nourish us

and sustain us

until he returns.

The Samaritan promised

when I return

I will repay you.

Christ promises

he is coming back

a second

and final time

to finalize the restoration

and wipe away

every tear.

We can only love

our neighbor

because we've first

been loved

by the ultimate neighbor

who died for us

his enemy.

And as C.S. Lewis

masterfully wrote

in The Weight of Glory

there are no ordinary people

you've never talked

to a mere mortal.

Nations

cultures

arts

civilizations

these are mortal

and their life

is to ours

as a life of an act.

It's to immortals

humans

that we conduct

all of our dealings

with one another.

So when we comprehend

the weight of what

Christ did for us

while we were his enemy

it fundamentally alters

how we view humanity.

So we walk out

of this building tonight

we pass someone

sleeping rough

in streets of Edinburgh

or meet the difficult

colleague tomorrow

or the lonely neighbor

across the stairwell

you're not looking

at an inconvenience.

You're looking at

an immortal soul

made in the image of God.

You're looking at

someone for whom

the road to Jericho

is that daily reality

living in a fallen world

carrying burdens

you cannot see.

And the wonder

of the gospel

is that law

which once condemned us

for a failure to love

is transformed

by grace.

What the law

is powerless to do

God did for us

by sending us Jesus.

Now let's see

how this beautiful

structured chapter

comes to its conclusion.

And Luke brings us

full circle here.

The chapter that begins

with mission

moved through mercy

now ends in worship.

It doesn't leave us

on a busy

blood-soaked road

to Jericho

ends immediately

after this

in a quiet home

in Bethany.

There we meet

two sisters

Martha and Mary.

Martha is running around

trying to do things

for Jesus

much like the lawyer

wanting to perform.

Our sister Mary

sits peacefully

at the feet of Jesus

absorbing his words

listening to his heart.

The 72 are sent out

the Samaritan acts

and Mary sits.

And this is where

the gospel

this is where the heavy command

becomes a gospel promise.

Jesus told the lawyer

go and do likewise.

Then Luke immediately

walks into the house

where Mary is sitting.

Why?

Because you cannot

do the going

until you've done

the sitting.

If you try to run out

tonight

and solve every problem

try to be a good Samaritan

try to be the perfect person

in your own strength

without first sitting

at the feet of Jesus

you'll burn out.

You'll start resenting

the very people

you're trying to help.

So before you can

effectively love

your neighbor

you have to stand

before God

empty-handed

like the beaten traveler

and simply receive

the mercy

he's already poured out

on you.

We must sit at his feet

to be filled

so we can go

into the streets

and pour out our love.

So what does

go and do likewise

look like tomorrow?

It's simply this

who's lying

on the road

in front of you?

Go and do likewise

is a life

that flows from grace.

Because gospel-shaped love

is really convenient.

It crosses boundaries

interrupts our lives

and costs us something.

But it costs Christ everything.

And we'll just close

with this short point.

We started tonight

with a question

from a lawyer

asking

what must I do

to inherit eternal life?

And here's the answer.

You don't inherit

eternal life

by being the good Samaritan.

You inherit it

by realizing

you're the one

dying in the ditch

and putting your faith

entirely in Jesus Christ.

He is the great Samaritan

who finds us helpless

in our sin.

When we trust in him

he binds our wounds.

He pays our debt

on the cross

and he promises

his return to us.

So friends

it's only when we

received his mercy

by faith

that we can begin

to show mercy

to others.

We do not go

and show mercy

to earn life.

We go

because Christ

because in Christ

we received life.

And so

having received the mercy

of the great Samaritan

Jesus now says to us

go

and do likewise.

And we'll close.

And so let us pray.

We thank you

grateful God

that when we turn

our attention

to your word

the Holy Spirit

brings it home

into our hearts.

We thank you

that we are saved

not by our performance

but by the mercy

of the great Samaritan

Jesus Christ.

As members of your family

heal our self-righteousness

break our love of boundaries

and replace it

with the love for our people.

Send us out this week

to love you totally

and to love the broken

the unexpected

and the forgotten people

we meet

along streets of Edinburgh

so that they too

might see the transforming

power of your grace.

In the beautiful name

of Jesus we pray.

Amen.