Tag: neighbors

October 12, 2023 – Matthew 22 – Love God and Others

It is amazing how we humans like to rank and rate things. If you’re not first your last… We want to have the best products if possible. If not the best, we certainly don’t want the worst.

The Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day were not strangers to the ranking and rating game. They had greater and lesser prophets. They were also interested in ranking the commandments. One day as others were trying to trip Jesus up in something he might say, an expert in the law joined in.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew22:36–40NIV

According to Jesus, the greatest commandment is to love God. Quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, Jesus points us to something very important. God is not interested in us simply keeping rules or the law. God wants us to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind… essentially all that we are.

Next Jesus ranks loving our neighbor the way we would love ourselves as the second greatest commandment. Not just the neighbor that lives next door, but anyone that we may encounter in life as was pointed out in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We are to love those who God loves (that’s everybody) the way we love ourselves.

These two commandments are so important that Jesus said everything else in scripture hangs on them. That seems to put them far and ahead of the big ten and the hundreds of other commandments in scripture.

If we want to please God, we must love him with all that we are, and love others as much as we love ourselves. Nothing else is more important.

Prayer: Dear loving God, help me to love you and those you love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

November 23, 2022 – Be a Neighbor

Exodus 4, Luke 10, 1 Corinthians 10

In Luke Chapter 10, you find one of the more widely known parables, the parable of the Good Samaritan. The term Good Samaritan has become a part of our language. We use it to describe someone who stops to help travelers in distress. Often, we just use it to describe someone who helps.

An expert in the law was trying to test Jesus with a question. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies, what does the law say and how do you understand 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.’” Luke10:27NIV

Jesus affirms his answer and tells him to do this and live. But the expert keeps digging. Maybe you have done that. You should have stopped talking but you kept on. “But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”” Luke10:29NIV

This parable has several interesting twists or hooks. First, the religious people, like the expert in the law who was questioning Jesus, walked by this Jew, their own kind, with out even slowing. In fact, they saw the mess of the robbed man’s nakedness and blood and moved to the other side of the road. They went out of the way to avoid him.

The half-breed Samaritan, that’s how Jews saw them, stopped immediately and cared for the man, not deterred by nakedness or bloodiness. You could think of yourself in this parable and you should. That is the idea behind them. They are word pictures. Imagine yourself in them.

What type of person or race would be shocking for you to stop what you are doing and help? If you were naked and bloody on the side of the road, would it matter what type of person or race stopped to help you? When I work through this, it seems my neediness supersedes my prejudices. Seeing someone else’s neediness should breakdown our prejudice as well.

Look at how the Samaritan, goes above and beyond. In today’s terms he would have given the man first aid, taken him to the hospital, paid the thirty dollar co-pay and signed the contract with the hospital to pay any additional costs the man’s care and treatment warranted. That could be astronomically expensive. He didn’t just call 911 and after they got there, go on about his business. He was committed to the man’s well being with his time and resources.

The last hook or twist is, Jesus flips the answer to the expert in the law’s question. The man asks, who is my neighbor? Jesus, holds up this filthy, half-breed Samaritan as the hero, and tells the religious expert to go and be a neighbor just like him.

Everyone is your neighbor! Love them as much as you love yourself!

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for making me, a filthy sinner, worthy to be in your presence by washing me in your blood. Lord, help me to drop any prejudices about others and help me love all people extravagantly! Amen.

Am I your neighbor?

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…” When you hear those words do they conjure up the image of a mild-mannered man putting on a cardigan sweater? If you grew up in the 70’s you probably immediately began to hear the words of Won’t You Be My Neighbor, the theme song of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

In Luke 10:25-37, we have the story of a lawyer testing Jesus with the question, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” So Jesus answers, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?”  To which the lawyer replies, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus replies, essentially, good answer! “Do this and you will live.” But the lawyer maybe wanting to stump the teacher ventures another question. “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answers with the story of the Good Samaritan. We’ve all know it. It is part of our vocabulary today. When someone stops to help someone, we call that person a Good Samaritan… he is a good guy. However, that isn’t the way Luke’s audience would have heard the story.

A Jewish man headed down a dangerous road is caught by robbers, stripped, beaten and left half dead. Into the story walks a Priest, the top religious person for God among the Jewish people. Will he stop and help this poor man? No, he goes to the other side of the road! Next, comes a Levite, one who works in the temple… perhaps the next best thing. Does he stop? He goes to the other side also!

Finally, along comes a… disgusting Samaritan! Samaritans had intermarried with non-Jews when the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom. Jews hated Samaritans because they considered them racially impure. Consequently, Samaritans hated Jews. Well you know the rest of the story. The Samaritan helps the man and paid for his recovery.

Jesus ends the story not by answering the lawyer’s question with a simple answer, but with the question… who was a neighbor to the man beaten and robbed? The question is not who is my neighbor, but am I being a neighbor to those in need?

Now more than ever, when we are being divided by so many issues, when we are compelled daily to define who we are by this or that political party or by this or that movement… and whoever isn’t with us is against us…

Jesus calls us to look past our differences, past our prejudices and be a neighbor to those in need.