Luke 10:25-37
Oof – this is not an easy one. Give it a read and let’s chat:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010%3A25-37&version=NLT
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. And love your neighbour as yourself. This isn’t the only place we hear these words or some version thereof. Here it was spoken by a man who was an expert in religious law. And it is an excellent summary of the ten commandments that we first find in Exodus 20. It’s really a summary of the whole law which is sprinkled throughout the first five books of the Bible. Those books together are called the Pentateuch, the Torah or the Law depending on who you ask. The books are the story of how God orchestrated the earliest events of human history so that he could reveal himself to the world starting with the nation of Israel. The story continues throughout the Bible, but in the Law, of which the man in today’s story was an expert, God spelled out the way people needed to approach him and one another in order for them to be in a right relationship with God.
So this guy comes along and he’s kind of testing Jesus, but Jesus turns the question back to him. The man’s response isn’t as insightful or original as we might think. He roughly paraphrases Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. There’s something here I want you to notice. In Deuteronomy it says to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength. This guy adds the word mind which wasn’t in the original command. Jesus doesn’t correct him, in fact in a similar story in the book of Mark, Jesus says the same thing. But did the man feel the need to bulk up the scriptures? Was he trying to be impressive by kind of pointing out that God hadn’t quite been comprehensive enough in his command? He was an expert in the law, so his job was interpreting it for the people. Jesus occasionally told off the teachers of the law because they added to the law, making it all about precise behaviours rather than the heart attitude toward God.
The man adds, “love your neighbour as yourself” (which is from the verse in Leviticus) to round out the summary. I’m not criticizing his summary. It’s actually excellent. Jesus doesn’t either. He says, “Yep. You get right on that and you’ll be fine.”
I kind of imagine an awkward pause while everyone in the room realises they don’t measure up to that standard. Let’s be honest. We don’t love God with every aspect of our being. We get distracted by things we think can give us greater satisfaction and purpose than he does. We imagine that we have better plans than his. We give greater value to possessions, status or relationships than we give to him. We don’t even spend enough time to get to know him. Anyone who tells you that they consistently love God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength is lying. Sorry. It’s just a fact. We may love him a lot. We may love him well. But we don’t love him with everything we are, not for more than a moment here or there perhaps. We are too divided in our priorities and concerns. We just don’t measure up. So when Jesus said, “Do that and you will live,” he was basically saying “Good luck with that.”
I’m going to guess that the expert didn’t really catch what Jesus was saying though, because it seems like his misgivings were more to do with how he treated his neighbours. I can kind of see the train of thought. Can’t you?
“I love my neighbour as myself… I gave Mrs. Levi next door a cup of sugar just yesterday. I got my son to mow Mr. Jacob’s lawn last summer when he was sick. Everyone on my street loves and respects me. I mean, Mrs. Judah on the corner hates me but she hates everyone. I just ignore her. But, that’s fine. She’s not really my neighbour…” He looks up from his thoughts. “Lord, tell me. Who is my neighbour?”
Jesus knows his first response completely missed its mark, so he decides to be more direct as he answers this question. He tells the story of the good Samaritan. Jesus chooses his characters well. The people who walk by the man in need are a priest and a Levite, religious leaders of the community who served in the Temple. These were the people the expert hung out with. The Samaritan was not the expert’s people. I’m trying to think of a modern day equivalent. For those of us who are Christians, think of the guy who helped being a member of some cult that claims to follow Jesus but completely misrepresents him. It’s just really hard to like this guy. Except in Jesus’ story he’s behaving like the hero. So when Jesus asks the law expert which character behaved nobly, like a neighbour, in the story, he would have choked on the answer. Jesus was telling him it’s not enough to be kind to Mrs. Levi, it isn’t even enough to reach out to miserable Mrs. Judah. He had to love even his enemy to fulfill that command.
This time when Jesus said, “Yep, get on that,” the conversation was over. The religious expert knew he didn’t meet the criteria, and the dialogue had lost its appeal.
So, to sum up, if you want to follow God’s law to God’s standards, love him with absolutely every part of you at all times and love even the least loveable people the way you love yourself. If this sounds like a tall order to you, it is. Keep reading. Our situation is not hopeless.
