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Love
Teaching Text: Luke 10 :25-37
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 out 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 robbers?”
The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
The Good Samaritan
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
If your apartment is in the middle, how many of your neighbors do you know?
Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.
Here are lent resources: https://trinitygracechurch.com/lent
Read the text and share what stands out to you about the encounter.
In this text… A really important question:
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
The temporal state of our current context
Many of us are not thinking about Eternity. We are thinking about:
How to get through today
How to get through this week
Our minds are caught up in a trend we won’t be able to remember this time next year
“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”
Luke is letting us know that this man is not just curious. He isn’t simply wanting to learn. He is testing Jesus. And he does so with a famous question of his time.
”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.’”
”To inherit eternal life, all he must do is to consistently practice unqualified love for God and his neighbor.” – Kenneth Bailey
It’s a huge question, its the right answer and none of us can execute this perfectly.
THE priest and the Levite - this should have been good news for our wounded Jewish traveler.
Yet, both of them avoid this man.
What do our needy neighbors think of our presence?
The man is naked and might be dead. If they are on their way to serve in the temple, they cannot come in contact with a dead body and being naked they cannot tell if this man is Jewish. So they aren’t sure what their obligation is to him
Basically they have really good reasons from experience why they cant help. And their reasons are connected to good religious conviction.
How easily do you find very legitimate, reasonable, and logical reasons not to show love to the most difficult/risky people to love?
And everyone hearing the story knows who the next person was going to be. The parable has a set rabbinic formula.
The priest, the Levite, the Jewish laymen. Jesus is going to make the hero a Jewish laymen.
But then he doesn’t. He introduces the hated enemy - the Samaritan.
There is so much risk and cost in what the Samaritan does.
What do our needy neighbors think of our presence?
What does the Samaritan do?
He saw him
He had compassion
He acted on his compassion and went to him
He used his own oil and wine
He went on a the dangers road on foot
He brought him to safety
He paid a high cost for his needs to be met
“Go and do likewise”
”Salvation is not some felicitous state to which we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps after the contemplation of sufficiently good examples. It is an utterly new creation into which we are brought by our death in Jesus' death and our resurrection in his. It comes not out of our own efforts, however well-inspired or successfully pursued, but out of the shipwreck of all human effort whatsoever.”
– Robert Farrar Capon
American evangelicalism has shown us you can have a ornate systems of personal devotion, prayers, Bible readings, conferences, and NOT LOVE your neighbor.
We often measure our spiritual well-being in personal devotional terms but God keeps putting the emphasis on how we love.
You cannot reach eternal life without the rescuing love of Jesus, and that is all
Once changed by that love, we learn to love our neighbor who includes our enemy.
The world is not moved by people who love the other people who like them and are like them.
The Kingdom of God looks like loving your enemy. At its heart is a man dying for his enemies
Jesus is interested in how you love your neighbors, because how we love our neighbor is how we love Him.
