12Apr2009 Luke 10:36-37 Jesus is Alive!

³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” ³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

This answer is too easy and too difficult at the same time. In a culture of excuses and “passing the buck” this answer of Jesus is difficult to understand. Our minds too often automatically switch to ‘escape’ mode when responsibility is being discussed. We feel our plates are full enough and we don’t want something else for which we are responsible. The bright intellectual man with whom Jesus is having a conversation wants to stay in the intellectual realm. He has worked hard to hone his intellectual skills. He did answer Jesus’ question correctly. He sought the answer to an age old question, “How do I get to heaven.” He phrased the question in a manner that betrayed his deficient theology. He focused on what he must ‘do’ to receive an inheritance. Of course you can do nothing to get an inheritance. You must be part of the family. You can’t do anything to become part of a family. You have to be born into a family. But Jesus answers his question by getting at the heart of his problem. He stood in pride. He thought he had accomplished so much with his intellectual pursuits. He probably thought he had just one more intellectual task to accomplish before he was ready for the kingdom. Intellectual pursuits are clean. Life is messy. When Jesus told the story it involved a number of messes. Jesus called the man to drop his well-formed and well-rehearsed barriers to the needs of others. The Samaritan in the story was from a despised and rejected sub-culture. And yet, he was the one who cared for the injured man. He was the one who did the right thing. For this intellectual man this would have been hard to swallow. The first two people who passed by had done the ‘correct’ action by not getting involved. They would have defiled themselves with someone outside their circle of responsibility. But when the Samaritan man, the rejected man, gets involved and is held up as an example of how to inherit eternal life, this is too much. Jesus calls this man to action. Kinship is about action. We need to act like our new family. Our new family gets involved with those who are rejected.