As I say, we've heard this parable so many times. I love going through the parables, and especially in Luke's gospel. It's been a special interest of mine lately. And, you know, you start to think with the Good Samaritan, you can't get blood out of a turnip. We've heard it so many times, we think we know it. And going back to this again, I was stymied over and over again. Whether to go this way or that way, because there's so much richness in this parable that I had never seen before. And so, study this with me, if you will, from Luke chapter 10, verses 25 to 42. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you've answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, a priest was going down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. Now, which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed mercy. Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Thus far the reading of God's word. The key verse, really, in Luke's gospel is chapter 9, verse 51. When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. It's here, really, where the travelogue begins. There's a real transition here, and the transition is marked by Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem. He knew why he had come. He knew what his purpose was. And it wasn't just to stand around talking to people, giving them nice tips for living on how they can be a better them. It was about him dying in Jerusalem. And at this point, of course, the disciples didn't know that that's what he was up to. But from here on, we have a series, a string of events and interactions and sayings and parables of our Lord that really turn on dinner. They turn on meals because Jesus has come as the bridegroom of the feast, the marriage supper. There are all sorts of reasons why the official invitees reject the invitation. They're too busy, they have a lot of things going on. Even three of the people just before this parable, three people say, yeah, we'll follow. And then, you know, they all got distracted by the cares of this world. well, I've got to go bury my father. I have to go take care of my family. I have to say, can I say goodbye to my parents? And Jesus is very sharp with them. Let the dead bury their dead. Seems insensitive. But what Jesus is saying is, I'm here now. I'm standing in front of you. Don't you get it? I am the king. This is the kingdom. Hear ye, hear ye. It is time now for all people to come to the feast. So there are meals with the Pharisees, amazing meals, where Jesus, the guest, takes over as the host and starts giving the Pharisees instructions on proper eating manners. When you have a feast, first of all, don't take the head seat. That's kind of embarrassing when the host comes around and tells you, actually, you have to sit over here. Oh, and also, when you have a feast, invite those who can't repay you. Don't invite your family and your friends, your boss. Invite those who can't repay you. This is not probably going to be a bestseller on hospitality. Jesus is not writing a new rule book on how to influence people by meals. Jesus, it seems, to the Pharisees, has bad table manners, but he's telling them they, instead, are the ones who exclude those whom God has invited to the feast. The Samaritans are bad neighbors because we're told in 951 that as soon as Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, they didn't want to have anything more to do with him. Because of their bigotry, they didn't like anybody who was interested in Jerusalem and going to Jerusalem. But then the disciples are bad neighbors because when the Samaritans didn't want to hear Jesus and his good news, his gospel, James and John wanted to call fire down to consume them. I've got an idea, Jesus. Why don't you just go have lunch, and we'll take care of this. A little fire from heaven. I mean, we can trample on serpents and everything now. Why don't we go do that? See, they're thinking of Jerusalem in an entirely different way. When we get to Jerusalem, it'll be big time. Jesus will be up there on his throne, and we will be sitting with him up on the platform, one on his left, one on his right, and Jesus is thinking, yeah, that's crucifixion. That's why I'm going to Jerusalem. So the Samaritans are bad neighbors rejecting Jesus, but the disciples are bad neighbors rejecting the Samaritans. Instead, Jesus rebuked them sharply, we read, and they went to another city. There's always somebody lower than you on the religious, socioeconomic, ethnic, moral scale that the world judges by. The Pharisees looked down on the Samaritans. The Samaritans now look down on Jesus. The disciples look down on the Samaritans. It's sort of what C.S. Lewis called the inner ring syndrome. We all like to think that we are in the inner circle, the inner ring. And we feel more and more like that if we can point to those who are outside of that ring. There's always somebody else who is a little poorer. There's always somebody else who is different enough from us so that we can highlight our importance. The prodigal son, of course, is along those lines. The point of the parable is not the outrageous foolishness of the prodigal son or the outrageous legalism of the older brother, but the outrageous mercy of the father. It's interesting, only Luke includes this parable as part of the conversation with the rich young ruler. This is part of that conversation, you know, where Jesus is approached by the rich young ruler, this Pharisee who says, what is the one thing I need to do to obtain eternal life? And Jesus says, well, you know the law, just as he says here, as Luke records it. And he says, well, I've done all that from my youth. Anything else? And Jesus says, oh, you've done that all from your... Don't ever tell Jesus that. You know, you walk away sad, like he did. This is that same episode, only now we have a fuller picture of what Jesus said to him. First of all, there are three shifts here. Three shifts that really began to pop out at me this past week. First of all, who is my neighbor? Secondly, who acted neighborly? And third, who is the good neighbor? First of all, who is my neighbor? Jesus is put to the test, so that already gives us an indication. Luke is already putting us on to the fact that this was not a sincere question. The Pharisee was coming to Jesus, as they often did, to trip him up. He'd been eating and drinking with publicans and sinners, and so let's trip him up. Let's get him to say that the law is unimportant. But instead, the lawyer asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus answered with the Ten Commandments. Let's do this and you will live. Now, why didn't Jesus say, oh, you don't do anything, you just believe in me? Ever wonder why didn't Jesus just say that? because he was being put to the test. He knew he was being tested by this Pharisee. And so what he's doing is very simply answering the Pharisee's question. If you're going to seek to enter the kingdom of God by your righteousness, which you think you have enough of, then here is the standard. In the other Gospels, we read that he told him, and sell everything you have and give it to the poor. That's what it means to really love your neighbor. Really? You've loved your neighbor? The man went away sad because he had many possessions. So the Pharisee is testing Jesus, and Jesus is simply answering his question, and he uses that formula that you get from the law, that you get from Mount Sinai. Do this, and you will live. That's the principle of the Sinai covenant. do this, and you will live. And so Jesus is simply saying to the Pharisee, do you not know your own scriptures? If you seek eternal life by the law, don't you know what the law itself says? Well, then do this, and you will live. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, I tell you, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Sounds like Cain, doesn't it? Am I my brother's keeper? Who is my responsibility out there? Now, neighbor is a big deal in Jewish thinking. Neighbor was not somebody you waved hi to as you pulled into your driveway. Neighbor was somebody that if you had them over for dinner, you were basically willing to lay down your life for them. Meals and hospitality and neighbor are all ideas that have a much more profound significance in the ancient world than they do for us today. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, Think of the reading of the law this morning. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or male servant, female servant, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. And in non-biblical Jewish texts of the day, of Jesus' day, and the little before and after, you have statements like this that very sharply delineated who is your neighbor in Israel. Place your bread on the grave of the righteous. Be lavish in your neighborliness towards fellow Israelites. Place your bread on the grave of the righteous, but give none to sinners. Give to the devout, but never help the sinner. Love your neighbor as yourself, means love all the sons of light, each one according to his lot in God's plan, and detest the sons of darkness. I shall not comfort the oppressed until their path is perfect. So desiring to justify himself, he asked, who is my neighbor? Dr. Clark was telling us last week that what we try to do with the law is lower it so we can clear it. And that's exactly what the Pharisees were trying to do. That's what legalism always, eventually legalism becomes antinomianism. right? You have to lower the law, you have to trivialize the law in order to really think that you're clearing the bar, and that's precisely what they're doing, and that's why Jesus will not allow that bar to go down one inch. I'm not a transgressor of the law because they're not my people. I'm not a transgressor of the law because I don't bother them and they don't bother me. I'm not a transgressor of the law because they're from a different neighborhood. It's easy to fulfill the law when you get to set the conditions for neighbor love. Close your eyes to the stranger who is right near you. Walk by. Walk past. Don't look at them. Don't look at their face. Let's just walk past them before we catch a glimpse of their eyes and we feel a tinge of guilt that we haven't stopped. And label them, label them the Samaritan or the Jew. Now there is a certain justification for the Pharisees' question because look at the passages that we've already looked at and what he had been taught by the Pharisees, by the rabbis. And even in Leviticus 19.18, we read, You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Your neighbor is the sons of your people and the sojourner who is with you. But it's the people in the land of Israel. And Jesus is saying, but now I'm here. Now I have come. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says that now is not a time of holy war. now is the time when you pray for your enemy, when you turn the other cheek, when you imitate the indiscriminate love and mercy of God your Father who sends rain and sun on the just and the wicked alike. There Jesus is breaking down that distinction between even the righteous and the wicked when it comes to the question, who is my neighbor? Now Jesus, the King of Israel, erases this boundary, or rather draws the boundary, redraws the boundary of neighbor around himself, particularly the boundary of Israel. Jesus now is that boundary determining who insiders and outsiders are. The outcast, the lame, the blind, the crippled. The moral outcasts, the tax collectors and sinners, they're sitting at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob while the Pharisees are cast into utter darkness, thinking about the other parables around this particular parable. Sadly, at the end of the day, we're all bad neighbors. Blaming everybody else for being bad neighbors. who therefore don't deserve our neighborliness. And so Jesus now puts the Pharisee to the test. There are three shifts here. First shift, the anonymous enemy is your neighbor. That's the definition of your neighbor. The anonymous enemy. Who is my neighbor? The anonymous enemy. The person you see on TV and you say, that guy ought to dot, dot, dot. That is your neighbor. It says, a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. And I think that Luke is really emphasizing here, went down. It is down. 2,500 feet above sea level, Jerusalem, and 825 feet below sea level, Jericho. He went down. But he also went down in all sorts of ways. Jerusalem is the place where the sacrifices are offered. Jerusalem is where the temple is. Remember the disciples, when Jesus and the disciples are standing there on the temple mountain, they say, oh, look at all the ramparts and the pinnacles. Isn't it glorious? And Jesus said, I tell you the truth, not one stone will be left upon another. Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem for the cross. Not for glory, but to make dinner for a lot of strange people. like us. In fact, to be dinner. To be the Passover lamb. What then about the ones who should have been good neighbors? Jesus says there was a priest and a Levite, and they both sort of just didn't make eye contact as they passed by this Jewish man in a ditch. And it's interesting, the victim was a fellow Jew. You would expect a priest and a Levite to help a fellow Jew. There's no question here now about whether the neighbor is an outsider, the neighbor is my fellow Jew, and nevertheless they passed him by. Now again, let's not be too hard on the priest and the Levite under the terms of the Old Covenant. The priests were offering sacrifices, oil and wine, essential for salvation and the peace of Israel and individuals within it. It was an important work that they were doing. And if they touched a corpse, they had to go through a seven-day purification process. Maybe the guy looked like he was a corpse. Hey, somebody else is going to have to take care of this. But the real issue is Christ. Once again, all bets are off. Whatever it was in the past, Christ is here. Now that he's here, the temple is rendered pointless. Jesus is going around forgiving sins as the temple, willy-nilly, to all who will receive. Now, under the New Covenant regime, we have to ask the question, what really is priestly service? And this is already grounded in Amos chapter 5, for example. I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs, to the melody of your harps I will not listen, but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. And it's interesting that the oil and wine that this Samaritan uses were also the elements that were used in the priestly service. That's what they offered on the altar. And now Jesus, the good Samaritan rather, is offering oil and wine on the altar of this man who has fallen into the ditch. An unclean Samaritan, here in Jesus' parable. An unclean Samaritan, sacrificing oil and wine. when the priests and the Levites were going to offer their oil and wine on the altar in Jerusalem. Second shift. So that's the first shift. The anonymous enemy is our neighbor. The second shift is from the wounded neighbor to the one who acted neighborly. Jesus changes the question from who is my neighbor to who is the one who acted neighborly. That's the question now. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor? to the man who fell among the robbers. Who was he? Well, first of all, he was a Samaritan. It would have been offensive enough for Jesus to have said that the victim was a Samaritan. But that would be an easy moralism. Now, therefore, you Pharisees, we Jews, we need to be a lot more helpful to people who aren't like us. We need to go help the Samaritans. But the hero isn't a Jew helping another Jew, or even a Jew helping a Samaritan, but a Samaritan helping a Jew. We have to really exercise some historical sympathy to try to understand how shocking and offensive this parable must have been to those who heard it. The enemy of Israel is the good neighbor. He's the hero of the story, while the Jew is the needy and helpless victim. What did he do? He saved his life. And not only did he save his life, but he provided lavish protection for the future. Lavish over and beyond, which is another theme of all the parables. The lavish father who kills the fatted calf when the prodigal comes home. Lavish, lavish, lavish. He provides lavishly for this person he has saved. So who is your neighbor? Everyone. Who is neighborly? The one who rescues the enemy. Notice the lawyer doesn't respond by saying, the Samaritan. He gets the guy right in the story who was the good Samaritan, But he can't get the word out. Samaritan. He just says, that guy. The third guy. But at least he picked the right guy, the one who showed him mercy. Just as Jesus has redefined who the neighbor is, namely everybody, even the enemy, he's redefined neighborliness. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. Now, this is a serious demand that Jesus is making here. Yes, he is pushing the Pharisee to realize that he isn't a neighbor. He thought he was, but he isn't, so that he will flee to Christ, the good neighbor. That is true, but it is also, first of all, let it just sink in as a serious demand. It is a demand laid upon us in creation itself. as all people are made in the image of God. But Jesus is saying that the neighbor isn't just your friend or family member or even acquaintance, but he might be your enemy and the one who can't repay you. Think of the story that I heard of a man who was in a concentration camp in Japan during World War II, and he almost died. and years and years later he became a Christian and years and years later he went back to meet he did all kinds of research to find the guy who was the head of that camp and he went back to meet him and to reconcile with him and tell him he had become a Christian and that he harbored no resentment toward him whatsoever and that other Japanese leader became a Christian that's the weird stuff that happens in this weird strange kingdom with this weird strange neighbor who comes to us and binds up our wounds the third shift Jesus is that strange neighbor he's strange at least in the eyes of the Pharisees he came to his own and his own received him not he himself was considered worthy of death in their eyes In fact, the Pharisees will have him stripped, beaten, and left half dead. In fact, we'll crucify him, have him crucified by the Romans. But he binds up. Think of Isaiah 61.6, that Jesus said as his first act of ministry was fulfilled in their hearing. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners. And he provides for their long-term care. He doesn't just save them. He provides for their long-term care, the friend of tax gatherers and sinners. I am with you, he says to his disciples, even to the end of the age. I will not leave you as orphans. You see all the steps here that Jesus has ingeniously led us through here. First, he's shown us that we have evaded our neighbor's face in an effort to justify ourselves. Second, he's shown us that the question isn't, who is my neighbor? The question is, am I neighborly? Third, he has asked us to see our character in this story, not as the good Samaritan, but as the man flying in the ditch. That's precisely what leads into the next and final section here of this passage. Mary and Martha, Jesus comes to their house. This strange neighbor comes to the house of two women. Lazarus, their brother, isn't even mentioned. He comes to their house, and no rabbi took women as his disciples, but Jesus takes these two women as his disciples. Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching, was, Jesus said, choosing the better part. Now, we can't be too hard on Martha. She was hospitable. But she wasn't hospitable to Jesus that day. What Jesus wanted was to bind her up and heal her, to serve her in her house. The guest becoming the host. And she wouldn't let him. She says, my house, I will serve you. I will offer hospitality to you. We read, but Martha was distracted with much serving. See, she's missing out on what matters most. It's time for Martha to sit at Christ's feet and be healed and bound up, bandaged by her Messiah. Instead, she says, Lord, you won't not even care that my sister has left me to serve alone. Tell her to help me. A little manipulative. Tell my sister to get off that chair and come over here and help me serve. That is where she belongs. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. See, she's distracted from the very one she needs to be pulled out of the ditch by. But one thing is necessary, Jesus says, and Mary has chosen the good portion which will not ever be taken away from her. I have taken her to my tavern. I have bound her up. I have left the money necessary and then some for her care. she was willing to recognize she was the miserable fellow in the ditch. That's what the Pharisees were unwilling to see themselves as. The people who are most unneighborly to Jesus are the ones who don't see themselves as the man in the ditch. So to conclude here, Jesus really is saying to us, go and do likewise. First, he's saying that so that we will realize that we haven't loved our neighbor as ourself and we'll flee to Christ for rescue. We will embrace him as the good neighbor. But, you know, we have to realize then that he's the one who pulls us out of the ditch. That's hard. That's hard for us, especially when we live a lot of times in charge in our lives, in charge of our families or in charge of our business or in charge of whatever, we're in charge. And in this area, we just realize we're the man in the ditch. We can't pull ourselves out. We're not the good neighbor. We're the helpless one. But then that turns to praise, as in Psalm 147 that I used for the greeting this morning. Praise the Lord for a song of praise is fitting. The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. And that's what Jesus is doing. And so the first thing Jesus is doing is driving us to him to bind up our wounds. But the second thing he's doing here, when he says go and do likewise, is really telling us, those of us who are united to him by faith, who have been pulled out of the ditch, who are still being nursed by him at his expense, have become part of a strange new world, a strange family, Think of the news this past week, all of the tension in our country, all of the sides that are being taken where neighbors are really becoming enemies. What an amazing thing for Christ to come into the middle of all of this today and say this to us and to make of us each Lord's Day more and more that new society of neighbors who don't turn away from the face of a stranger. Who don't pour themselves into distraction when the Master is here to bind up our wounds and to heal us. So we're not the healthy Pharisee who thinks he's kept all these things from his youth. What must I do to have eternal life? Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. We're the ones lying half dead in the ditch. That's our character in this story. Like Mary, we know that Jesus is the one thing necessary. Our only portion. And that's why we hang on his every word. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for sending the good neighbor to bandage our wounds and provide so lavishly for our restoration. Help us to humble ourselves, to know that we need to be served by this rescuer and help us in him now to become more and more good neighbors, first to this strange new family in which you've placed us. Family made of people from every race and tribe and kindred and tongue and nation and age. And then, neighbors to outsiders who are even our enemies. Help us to see our neighbors, even our enemies, as gifts you send to us. instead of as burdens from whom we turn away. For we pray in Christ's name, amen.