May 12 2019 Luke 10 - Jesus Assaults Our Prejudices!

Lord, thank You for moms in our church here, and the moms that aren’t here – they’ve sacrificed so much and would do it gladly again. The love in our hearts comes from You – and You are our great parent, who loves us more than any parent could. Open our hearts as we look at a familiar passage.

I am going to look at what prompted Jesus to tell the Story of the Good Samaritan.

This expert in biblical law is asking Jesus a question. Rarely is the question genuine. He knows what he thinks is the right answer, and is doing this to test Jesus to see if JESUS knows the right answer.

Luke 10: ²⁵ Now an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus, saying, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

There is a flaw in the question – you don’t DO anything to gain an inheritance!

Jesus answers with 2 questions:

²⁶ He said to him, "What is written in the law?

This guy is a lawyer – he should know the Law.

How do you understand it?"

Or, how do you interpret it?

The Jewish leaders loved to argue about the meanings of Scriptures – and they would write about it – and we have some of those writings – there were different schools with different approaches.

If you missed any of the past few weeks – it would be helpful to go back and watch those.

Last week – we looked at Do not judge lest you be judged – and along with that – many disputable things in Scripture. People have been doing it for millennia. They are not trivia, but they are disputable. Last week’s sermon plays out in this story.

For a Biblical Scholar in Jesus’ day – the Books of Moses – they were already ancient books in Jesus’ day. Ancient books for ancient peoples – and the understanding of what was written had changed dramatically – because Jesus was always correcting them on their understanding. Things have changed dramatically in that time!

The Jewish people were continually trying to understand the laws and how they applied to their current circumstances – so they would test Jesus – like – A woman has a husband who dies and marries a brother and he dies and marries the next brother and he dies…. Who is she married to in heaven?

Those types of questions….

Have you ever been reading the word and they quote an Old Testament scripture and you think – how did they make their point from THAT verse?!

The problem with the expert in the Law – and he has all these laws memorized – all 5 books of the Old Testament. The problem – He didn’t understand the nature of the Scriptures themselves – their purpose and how they should change you. We think it was simple – but that was the Lawyer’s problem. His view of the Mosaic law – a series of laws, rules, and commandments that were to be applied as directly as possible.

We think – what is wrong with that? But that is a SMALL PERCENTAGE of what the Bible is. In our minds – you may have heard me say this – and for that – I apologize – “The Bible is the owner’s manual or blueprint for the Christian life” – but that is completely incomplete! It misses so much. Here is what Jesus understood – and I apologize – this is the Bible Nerd in me coming out.

Jesus and Paul understood this – when the Bible is the owner’s manual for life, it makes the Bible about US – but the Bible is all about GOD – and that is the difference. The Bible is a grand narrative -t he story of God (and His relationship with creation, humanity, and His redeem[tion of humanity – but it is first the story of God)

It is like a mighty river – the story of God’s redemption of His people – and it is flowing down the river – and there are many tributary stories that fill the river – that jump in and connect with that story,.

The Bible Project people help us understand these motifs and themes – on their website – they have instructions about how to read the Bible – and there are thick books with small print – or you can watch their videos with cartoons! You choose! I chose the books – you could end up like ME!

They didn’t just pull verses out like the expert in the law – rather, they looked at the verse – and looked at how it fit in – how do you understand it? Rip it out? Stack them up?! And then USE them AGAINST someone?! That is what they did!

Before we can understand and interpret verses, we must first have an understanding of the narrative of God.

²⁷ The expert answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." ²⁸ Jesus said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live."

He picked the right verse! But was he right?! No! Plenty of people have the right verse, but are not right. That verse is not helping you any – Jesus knows where the man is…

²⁹ But the expert, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

This expert’s view – a neighbor was non-family member who was like me in belief, practice, and kind. For him – a neighbor would have been a fellow Jew. – Limiting the command to make it attainable.

Leviticus 19: ¹⁷ 'You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. ¹⁸ 'You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD…

He looked at it in its context, and said – aha! I only have to love my neighbor who is a fellow countryman! He missed the entire point of the narrative of God.

³³ 'When a stranger resides with you in your land (you can read this as IMMIGRANT, here, in our context), you shall not do him wrong. ³⁴ 'The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.

The story of Israel – the story of God – you go back to Abraham – God said, I will make you a blessing to the entire world! From the beginning – Be fruitful and multiply – fill the earth! All humanity, from the beginning – are our neighbors. Every human is a neighbor to us. If we don’t catch the story, we end up like this man!

Let me go back – Slavery – Pastors – great Christians, supposedly – took verses from Galatians and Ephesians – Slaves, obey your masters – and they used this to legitimize what they were doing! But what did they forget? – the great story of the Bible. Exodus is the central point of the Old Testament – everything revolves around it – God delivering His people from slavery to Egypt. That is the entire story of the Bible – when you understand THAT! And has they were continually redeemed from Assyria, and Babylon – culminated in Jesus delivering us from the slavery of evil and sin. The Bible needs to be read in that view – the entire story focuses on that – and that makes it easy to get the ENTIRE THING WRONG AND HAVE VERSES TO BACK IT UP! We pull out the verse and forget where it is at!

Luke 10: ³⁰ Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him up, and went off, leaving him half dead. ³¹ Now by chance a priest was going down that road, but when he saw the injured man he passed by on the other side. ³² So too a Levite, when he came up to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was wilderness where there would be robbers on the road – think of stage coaches in the Old West.

The priest would have been the noble elite – having spiritual duties in the temple – and the Levites would have had the practical duties – like Elders and Deacons today. The problem today – people in privileged elite positions can develop an attitude of superiority. The two purposely passed by the one who was beaten and half-dead. There are all kinds of opinions as to why they might have done this – But the Bible doesn’t give any clue into the motivation. I think – because – there is no proper reason or motivation that would allow one to ignore or neglect someone in this situation. The person is lying there half-dead – we have a responsibility and you can’t get out of it! In a typical story - following a pattern – 3 characters – and in a situation like this – think of Levites, priests, and the common man. Levites and priests might be despised by the common man. Like politicians today! In a typical story – to have the Levite or Priest be a bad person – and the common Jew to be the good guy. But…

³³ But a Samaritan who was traveling came to where the injured man was, and when he saw him, he felt compassion for him. ³⁴ He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever else you spend, I will repay you when I come back this way.'

Jesus flips the story by putting a despised and hated Samaritan as the hero of the story. He assaults their prejudices! I think we need our prejudices assaulted by God, in massive ways. In the time after Solomon, there was a huge civil war in Israel. In 722 BC – the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom – and what they would do – they would repopulate the land – and there was a mixing that took place – there was a mixing – following the Laws of Moses –

“We tend to hate the most those who are closest to us, but are not us!” Think of it this way… Pittsburgh and Cleveland – similar cities – ethnic, hard-working – but because of football, we hate them the most! The reason we hate those closest to us – they remind us of what is bad in us – or what is wrong with us.

The Samaritan demonstrates that not only does he know the law, he loves his neighbor – but he knows the rest of the narrative – the story of the Bible – getting down to his level. What did God do when Adam and Eve sinned? He came down.

The earth was wicked at the time of Noah – God comes down.

The tower of Babel – God comes down to humanity in need.

Then of course – the story of Jesus – Jesus coming down – the Good Samaritan – the despised one.

³⁶ Which of these three do you think became a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" ³⁷ The expert in religious law said, "The one who showed mercy to him." So Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."

Jesus rephrases the lawyer’s question and asks – are you a neighbor – and what kind of neighbor are you? Jesus adds a fourth to the narrative – but what does he do with the common Jew? He is the beaten man – when you are in that situation – what kind of neighbor do you want? The one that will be compassionate and merciful.

Does it matter their race? No. Gender? No. Religion? No.

When you are laying there half-dead, you don’t care anything about the background of the EMS worker who shows up.

6 things –

There is no such thing as a non-neighbor. There are zero.

The person who needs you in this moment and whose need you can meet – is your neighbor. The question we should ask ourselves – who is in need of a neighbor now?

The Samaritan loved God and was faithful to God.

You cannot divorce holiness and righteousness from compassion.

Finally – the Good Samaritan is an awful title for this parable – and we should never use it again! Why? What does the title imply? That most Samaritans are bad! That is how we think! Have you ever been in a situation where someone of a different persuasion – of a different group or kind – acts more like God than the people who are supposed to act like God? And we think this way – that’s a good Samaritan – as opposed to the rest, who are not!

We had the National Day of Prayer at Lion’s Park – with 8 or 9 pastors from different circumstances or conditions – Everyone led in one area of prayer – and you know what their tradition is – and you wonder what THEY are going to say.

The Charismatic – the fundamentalist kind of guy – got up and led us in the Lord’s Prayer. The Millennial Pastor – with tattoos and a church into social justice – talked about how God was saving people all over the world – and that is His plan.

And with each one – I went – WOW! You get these 8 or 9 diverse people speaking about what God is doing – and I was a little convicted. Let’s pray…