Parables #6: My neighbor is near to me – Luke 10:25-37

Parables 6: My neighbor is near to me – Luke 10:25-37

Sermon: My neighbor is near to me!

Intro

Today we are going to look at the parable “of the good bastard”

A professor at the Biblical Institute of Geneva, during a discussion that we find in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 10.

We have this chapter more or less in mind because it is the famous moment when Jesus sends the 70 disciples to the surrounding towns with the mission of announcing the coming of the kingdom of God.

In these special times, the disciples even have the power to heal and cast out demons.

When they return, they are marked because they have lived in these terms:

Rejoice that your names are written in heaven

Luke 10

17 The 70 returned joyfully and said:

“Lord, even demons submit to us in your name.”

18 Jesus said to them:

“I watched Satan fall from the sky like lightning. 

19 Behold, I have given you the power to walk over serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall harm you.

20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Hearing what has just happened, a professor from the Institut Biblique de Genève,

worked inside to find out what it is about his eternity or that Jesus’ assertion does not fit the pattern of the law and in defiance of what Jesus says, rises , and asks this question to Jesus:

Luke 10

25 A professor of the law stood up and said to Jesus to put him to the test:

“Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

To continue the discussion on a ground where the teacher is very comfortable, Jesus responds in the following way:

Luke 10

26 Jesus said to him:

“What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

27 He answered:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.”

It is actually a compilation of Deuteronomy 6.5 and Leviticus 19.18.

28 “You have answered well,” said Jesus to him. Do this and you will live.”

And indeed, if we did that we would live, in the sense of Eternity.

But it’s impossible :

Our state of sinners makes us unfit to live it.

The resurrection body will be adapted to this (a nod to our discussions on Monday evening).

The law reveals the state of sin and not a way of Salvation

The Epistle to the Romans is super precious to us because it reminds us, human sinners,

that the perfect law of God is not a way of Salvation,

but the revealer of our sinfulness…

Indeed, if I transgress the law even once, I am declared guilty before God.

Do you think we really love God with all our minds?

And what about our neighbors???

But our teacher was still full of illusions,

for thinking that he was in tune with God whom he does not see,

perhaps he had doubts about his compatriots whom he sees!

This is why he adds:

Luke 10

29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

And that’s a great question.

To help us, Jesus will tell a story in the form of comparison.

The situation of the story He tells will force us to compare it to our situation.

And as an excellent teacher, so that we retain it, Jesus will prick us to wake us up by staging symbolic characters…

I read it to you:

Luke 10

30 Jesus spoke again and said:

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of robbers who stripped him, beat him up, and went away, leaving him half dead.

31 A “pastor of the Action Biblique de Renens” who, by chance, was going down the same road saw this man and passed by at a distance.

32 Likewise also “someone from the worship group of Action Biblique de Renens” arrived at this place; he saw it and passed at a distance.

33 But a “filthy bastard of his race of” Samaritan who was traveling came near him and was filled with compassion when he saw him.

34 He came and bandaged his wounds by pouring oil and wine on them; then he put him in his car, and drove him to the nearest clinic.

35 The next day, [when he left,] he took charge of the care in a private room, and said, ‘Take care of him, and what you spend more, I will pay you back when I return.’

36 Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”

37 “He was the one who did kindness to him,” replied the professor of law.

Jesus said to him [therefore]: “Go and do the same, you too.”

Adaptation to realize the context

You will have noticed that I adapted this parable a little to our context

But it was super shocking that it was the Samaritan who got it right!

Moreover, they were so hated that you will have noticed that the professor finds a formulation not to say

it was the Samaritan who was next to him who fell among the robbers

but he is going to say, “He is the one who did kindness to him.”

First impression

Despite this, this parable is simple and urges us to do the same thing as the Samaritan towards the wounded man who, faced with his dramatic situation, acts with heart.

To answer the teacher’s question

For the Samaritan, the wounded man was his neighbor.

It is up to us to do the same with a situation of the same type that will arise on our way.

Comparison

The situation the Samaritan went through is compared to what we might encounter

#The neighbor is the person in need.#

##He is the Samaritan is busy with,

is compared

to the person who needs help that we will meet##

Truth

Our neighbor is the person who needs help that we will meet. This is the situation that is close to us:

Next -> Near

Application

It is up to us to answer them with heart.

Happy Sunday and see you next week…

And there, we’re going to stay conceptual, idealistic, a little pink flower, it’s beautiful. 

Love our neighbour…

Great

Let’s love, let’s act for our neighbor, this loved one who has a crying need

whoever it is, whoever it is,

even if it turns my little life upside down,

even if the latter is not sympathetic (could it be that he is a sinner like me?);

is responding to his needs responding to what he asks?

My neighbor is in a situation that is close to me on my way. What to do with everything we see through the news or the requests in the mailboxes?

This is what I propose to think about.

Whoever it is, whoever it is

This parable does not restrict the range of the neighbor:

It’s not just my family members and it’s important to pay special attention to this: 

1 Timothy 5.8 denied the faith and he is worse than an unbeliever.

It’s not just the believers (although we must have renewed attention to them: Galatians 6:10 So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to brothers in faith .).

It’s not just the people I know.

It’s not just people who think like me.

It’s not just people from the county, or even, if I’m a progressive, from the Confederation…

Jesus, here, shows that he is a rejected person, he is “the filthy bastard”, who is considered “the pure”, who insults and despises him, usually as his neighbor.

#Our neighbor can be anyone on our life path#

##In a church, during the landing, an American nurse treated both American and German soldiers and French civilians:

On June 6, 1944, fighting raged on the landing beaches. Bob Wright and Ken Moore, two paratroopers from the US Army’s 101st Airborne, transform the church of a small Norman village into an improvised aid station. During the whole battle, they healed and saved more than 80 lives (French, Americans, Germans).##

An involvement that engages

In this parable, the Samaritan got his hands dirty, and changed his schedule, his program, and his journey; his intervention cost him money and he even provided after-sales service (Service After Intervention), since on his return, he will have to pay the pension again.

Taking care of your neighbor is concrete and commit to doing it with heart, it’s not sentimentality…

Recently, a friend from a sister church brought in Ukrainian refugees whose families were waiting.

After having entrusted them to the said families, he had a phone call, a few days later, from a family to take back the refugees welcomed a few days earlier because it was taking time and therefore another place had to be found. for these refugees.

I don’t know if these people would have appreciated the same thing being done to them if they were the ones who had been the refugees…

Matthew 7. 12

Whatever you would like men to do for you, do the same for them,

The neighbor is a sinner like you and me

For the case presented in the parable (Matthew 7:12), the situation was simple: someone wounded, half dead, needs help and care, and therefore it is the Samaritan who really takes care of him.

The story does not say if the robbed and injured man was a beautiful person. Maybe she was a rotten person, a person who beat his wife and children? (even the priest and the Levite recognized it as such.)

We can make assumptions: it doesn’t matter, he needed care!

All Ukrainian refugees are not necessarily beautiful people, but they need to be welcomed.

When we welcome people into our homes, because they are looking for a roof for their studies, to start out in life, it’s not necessarily a party every day, but it doesn’t matter, they need to be welcomed.

What I mean by that is that taking care of your neighbor inevitably costs, not only financially, not only because it upsets our comfort and our little habits, but also because he is a sinner like you. and me. It doesn’t matter, if the next one needs help, let’s help him.

#To love is at a price#; besides,## if loving doesn’t cost, it’s selfishness.

Didn’t Christ lay down His life only for rotten people who rightly deserve hell and most of whom don’t give a damn? But He did!##

Respond in a fair way

Is responding to the needs that my neighbor expresses means I am reacting in the best possible way?

Is giving money to someone who asks us on the street the best for them? (Problem of feeding the dependencies that put him in this hazardous situation, maintaining the organized begging gangs).

Did Jesus give alms to the paralytic, the blind, etc.?  He often did better, He healed them and opened up a new perspective for them.

There are no ready-made answers.

Thank you, Lord, He gives to the redeemed by Christ His Spirit to help us also in these situations.

At a minimum, when the situation is very clear, let’s go!

Reflections on the next ones who are far away.

What the parable of Jesus shows us is that the neighbor is near. We meet him on the road of our life.

We have a problem, it is that the media inundate us, and saturate us with dramatic situations. Not that they are moved by it, but that it sells and finds a fascinating echo among many viewers. If the TV news presented only positive things, it’s a safe bet that the ratings would drop…

So in this jumble of dramatic facts, we are constantly confronted with multiple needs in the world.

But are they our neighbors?

Indeed, Jesus shows that our neighbor is not at the other end of Judea, but it is the one who is close to us.

However, are we going to close our hearts with a biblical: as it is not near, it is not my neighbor? Out of sight out of mind…

What we see in the epistles and in the book of Acts is that churches provided for Christians in Jerusalem because they were destitute, starved, and persecuted (e.g. driven from their jobs when they accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour):

Acts 24:17

After an absence of many years, I have come to bring gifts to my nation and to present offerings.

Rom 15.26

Indeed, the churches of Macedonia and Achaia have kindly organized a collection in favor of those who are poor among the saints of Jerusalem.

1Co 16.1

As regards the collection for the saints, do you also, as I have commanded the churches of Galatia:

1Co 16.3

When I am with you, I will send with letters to those whom you choose to carry your gifts to Jerusalem.

OK, it was believers to believers in Christ.

Galatians 6:10

So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to the brethren in the faith.

May God again, by His Spirit, help us to have wisdom (to think and act according to God with Him).

That our hearts are available and if it happens that we have good to bad purposes, it is ultimately not very serious and especially since it does not block us from all the other situations with which we will be confronted.

Conclusion :

let’s be

attentive, caring, and attest to the needs of our neighbor, the one with whom we are going to be confronted.

Let’s be this in a renewed way, from someone in our family, of a brother or sister in faith in Christ.