Weekly Sermon Overview

Transcription

1 Weekly Sermon Overview Message Date: July 20, 2014 Message Title: Love Your Enemies

2 OVERVIEW Toward the end of the 10 th Century BC, the people of Israel who, at one point, had been one nation under King David and his son Solomon split into two different kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. Much, though not all, of the stories that we read in the Old Testament center around the Kingdom of Judah, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that, in 722, the Kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. For a number of years, their kings had been playing a dangerous cat & mouse game with the Assyrian Empire trying to manipulate the much larger, much more powerful empire with promises of allegiance and tribute, while, behind their backs, making the same promises to their enemies, the Egyptians. So, in 722, the Assyrian Emperor, Shalmaneser V, having heard rumors of Israelite rebellion and having never received a penny of the promised tribute, decided enough was enough and marched in and completely destroyed the Northern Kingdom. Over the next couple of years both he and later his brother, Sargon II, would haul the people of the Israel off to Assyria, and they would never be heard from again (thus, the lost tribes of Israel). However, about 50 years later, in order to recolonize the land and keep it from becoming wilderness, the Assyrians resettled the land with people from other nations. Now, some of them claimed to be descendants of the lost tribes, and many even would practice a form of the Jewish faith, but over time they would develop a reputation with the true Jews that is, the people of the Southern Kingdom as half-breeds and idol worshippers. The result of all of this was something of a blood feud that lasted for centuries, with countless acts of animosity and even outright violence being perpetrated by each side against the other. One of the most significant of these occurred during a brief period of Jewish independence under the Hasmonean dynasty in the late 2 nd Century BC, between the Greek and the Roman occupations. One of the Hasmonean kings, a man named John Hyrcanus, riding a wave of nationalistic pride, marched against Samaria, capturing its capital and destroying its holiest site, Mount Gerazim (which was at the center of the conflict between Jews and Samaritans Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem ). Samaria would rebound under the Roman Empire, with some scholars estimating that the population grew to several hundred thousand by the time of Jesus. Of course, this simply added to the hostility between the two groups, as these hundreds of thousands of Samaritans came to occupy land directly between the two major Jewish population centers: Judea (in the south) and Galilee (in the north). As a result of the shared hatred and forced proximity, hostility was a regular part of Samaritan and Jewish life. Somewhere in the early 1 st Century AD, around the time of the birth of Jesus, several Samaritans snuck into Jerusalem during Passover and scattered human bones around the temple to render it ceremonially unclean prior to the most significant Jewish holiday. In the middle of the 1 st Century, a group of Samaritans waylaid a group of Galilean pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem and massacred them. The Jews, on the other hand, treated the Samaritans like Gentiles, barring them from entry into the Temple, forbidding any sort of relation between Jews

3 and Samaritans, and even using the word Samaritan contemptuously, as a deeply offensive insult. Needless to say, by the time of Jesus, animosity between Jews and Samaritans was at an all-time high, and any self-respecting Jew would go out of his or her way to avoid the Samaritans. And, I say all of that, by way of introduction, to make an important point: the story that Jesus tells in Luke 10 the story that has come be known as The Good Samaritan is not simply a sweet story about a man who goes out of his way to help a needy stranger. It s a bold, offensive, wildly counter-cultural story about a man who redefined neighbor by having compassion on, by showing radically sacrificial love to, one whom he had every right to despise. On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What is written in the Law? he replied. How do you read 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. You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. Do this and you will live. But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbor? In reply Jesus said: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, Go and do likewise. -Luke 10:25-37 Another conversation with an expert in the law leads to another important discussion about and, thereby, another significant facet of godly love. This conversation begins in much the same way the one we discussed a few weeks ago did (Mark 12:28-34). Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? -Luke 10:25b Again, I m left wondering if this might have been more than a merely academic conversation, given the number of times that people ask Jesus this question throughout the Gospels. The question at

4 the heart of the question is again, What does God want from me (us)? This time, however, Jesus doesn t grace the man with an answer; He simply responds: What is written in the Law? he replied. How do you read it? -Luke 10:26 In other words, You re the expert. You tell me. Really, this is a rather ingenious rhetorical strategy on Jesus part. By forcing the man to venture an answer to his own question, Jesus was using the man s own expertise against him. He came to Jesus for a profound, mysterious, supernatural answer, and Jesus responds with absolute simplicity: The answer is staring you right in the face. It s on the pages that you ve been poring over since you were old enough to read. For goodness sake, it s in your hearts! You teach it to your kids! You talk about it around the dinner table! You write it on the doorposts of your house! You tie it to your hands, bind it on your foreheads! You ve read the book. What does it say? 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. -Luke 10:27 His answer is orthodoxy itself. Simple and pure. It s exactly what Jesus would have said. It s exactly what Jesus did say, on numerous occasions. Now, it could be that this particular expert in the Law had been following Jesus around and, therefore, knew the answer that Jesus expected, but whether he was simply parroting an answer he had heard before or was answering out of the depth of his own experience with the Law, the fact remains: He knew the answer. So, Jesus responds: You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. Do this and you will live. -Luke 10:28 The man was now quite thoroughly and very publically embarrassed. Here he had tried to ask a profound question, perhaps even trying to stump or even trap Jesus, and suddenly he finds himself outflanked by the oldest move in the book. So, desperately to save face, wanting to justify himself, he asks: And who is my neighbor? -Luke 10:29b Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes this question as satanic because he sees that, at its heart, it is more interested in limiting the Word of God than it is on obeying the Word of God. Jesus had just demonstrated to this man that the answer to his question in fact, the answer to eternal life was within his grasp, if only he would obey it. But, the man, embarrassed at the simplicity of the answer, as well as at the fact that he had failed to obey this simple command, rather than running

5 to, diving into, and being swept along by the rivers of living water that had just appeared before his eyes, sought to dam them down to a trickle. What he was asking is, Is what is the bare minimum that I can get away with? How far do the boundaries of my neighborhood extend? Who must I love? Jesus response blows the man s dam to hell (sorry, I couldn t resist). In reply Jesus said: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. -Luke 10:30-35 The parable that Jesus gives in response to the man s question would have been tremendously shocking to the expert in the law not to mention, to any else listening because Jesus had just committed the worst of narrative faux pas, he had confused the characters in the story. He had inaccurately and inappropriately assigned the roles of protagonist and antagonist. The first on the scene, the priest and the Levite, whom Jesus paints in the worst possible light by the end of their story, were the very pictures of righteousness, of Jewish piety. On their way to Jerusalem, presumably to fulfill their sacred, God-given duties, these two holy men, come across what appears to be a naked corpse lying in the road. As they get closer, they realize that the man, covered in blood, is, in fact, still alive. Immediately, their heart goes out to him, and they genuinely wish they could help, but the fact is, he s naked and covered in blood and very well could die while they re on their way to do God s work. Were they to help him, they would run the risk of rendering themselves ceremonially unclean and, thereby, unable to perform their sacred duty. So, their only righteous recourse was to step around and move on. Very reasonable and an appropriate answer to the expert in the law s question: Your neighbor are those who are clean, pious, righteous and, therefore, worthy of your love. But, Jesus doesn t have the decency to end the story there. Instead, he introduces a third character who, for the reasons discussed above, was the exact opposite of the two who had passed by before him. This Samaritan (endow the word with appropriate contempt as you say it) doesn t even deserve to be mentioned in the same story as those two holy men. Seeing the man lying in the road, he stops and cleans and bandages the man s wounds. Clearly, he s not worried about cleanliness and purity, but the poor, injured man, if he survives this ordeal, should be. He s been

6 touched by, carried by, cared for by the most unclean of all creatures, a Samaritan. This filthy creature then, hauling the man on his own donkey, takes him to an inn hopefully, not a Samaritan inn and pays for all of his expenses, promising to return with more money, if it is needed. Jesus, the expert in the Law must have been thinking, this story is pointedly absurd. This would never happen. No Samaritan would ever do any of that for a Jew. Besides, what does this have to do with the question that I asked you: Who is my neighbor? This is where Jesus flips the script: Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? -Luke 10:36 The parable of the Good Samaritan is such a brilliant answer to the man s question because it both sidesteps the original question and fully answers it. See, where the expert in the Law was interested in limiting the term neighbor, Jesus was interested in redefining it. The question the man asked was, Who is my neighbor? but Jesus reframes the question, asking instead: Who was his neighbor? The issue, Jesus says, is not who you should call neighbor but who will call you neighbor. So, Jesus both ignores and answers the man s question. He says, You re asking the wrong question, but, He continues, If you must ask it, the answer is, Yes. The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, Go and do likewise. -Luke 10:37 And, this is pretty radical, when you think of just how far that yes extends. Elsewhere, Jesus would put it like this: You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. -Matthew 5:43-48 All of this says something remarkably significant about the second great commandment and, therein, about the first. It means that love of neighbor, being an extension of love of God, is not ours to limit. We cannot confine it to those near us, those like us, those lovely to us, those benevolent toward us, or any other self-centered criteria. No, in our love of neighbor, Jesus says, we must be God-centered first, other-centered second, and self-centered never. It is God who sets the limits of love, and those limits are infinite: Be perfect And, this means that the second

7 greatest commandment can also quite appropriately be paraphrased, Love your enemy as yourself. Author: Josh Harrison REFLECTION QUESTION 1. Who comes to mind when you think about this? Who is your neighbor but someone that you find it difficult to love? 2. How can you actively pursue loving them? NEXT STEP RESOURCES (Check out these resources for additional reading on this topic.) 1. Who Is This Man: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus by John Ortberg 2. The Jesus I Never Knew by Phillip Yancey