Project Description

reflect > REPENT > receive > rest > request > rehearse > recount

Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to a Lawyer who asked what he must do to inherit eternal life.

As Jesus does, he flips the dialogue and urges the Scribe to answer his own question. The Lawyer correctly recited a portion of the Shema from Deuteronomy 6 – “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.”

Simultaneously affirming and warning, Jesus then quotes Leviticus 18:5, “Do this, and you will live.” In other words, Jesus says, ‘Yes, demonstrate unwavering and wholehearted compliance to the Law and you will inherit eternal life.’

His stomach sinking, the Scribe knowingly sought to limit the demands of the Law … it was his only hope to fulfill it. “Who is my neighbor?” (… So you’re saying I have a chance… please say I only have to love those who are like me…)

Jesus piles on. He proceeds to creatively and emotively paint a picture of the Law’s universal demand – ‘You must have compassion on every person, in every place at all times.’

This same legal demand rests squarely on the shoulders of every human, this is the demand of the Law on you. ‘Demonstrate unwavering and wholehearted compassion to everyone, everywhere, always.’

READ AGAIN : Luke 10:25-37 – The Parable of the Good Samaritan

I don’t know about you, but my life can be characterized as anything but ‘universal,’ ‘unwavering,’ and ‘wholehearted.’

As you move through the rest of your day ask the Spirit to reveal the ways in which you fall short of demonstrating universal compassion to all. In hope and confession, name each one aloud.

Don’t ask, ‘who is my neighbor?’ Ask, “whose neighbor am I?”