Weekly devotion | Luke 10:25-37

Weekly Devotion no 41
12 February 2021

Bible reading – Luke 10:25-37[1]

²⁵On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

²⁶‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’

²⁷He 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 neighbour as yourself.”

²⁸‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’

²⁹But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

³⁰In 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. ³¹A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³²So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴He 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. ³⁵The 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.”

³⁶‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’

³⁷The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’

Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Reflection

This is a well known story from Jesus. You’ve probably heard it many times before. The expert in the law was well versed in the Jewish scriptures. He knew his stuff and he was really seeking to trip Jesus up. Jesus turns his questions back on him and then tells him a story in response.

We don’t know much about the man in the story. We don’t know if he was Jewish or not, we don’t know if he was rich or poor, young or old, educated or not. But we know that he was robbed and beaten up so badly that he was half-dead. He was in desperate need, clinging to life. He was a human being who needed help.

But two people walked by him: people who you would think because of their knowledge of the Jewish scriptures would have seen the need to act, to care for a person who was created in the image of God and who was perilously close to losing their life. Surely they believed in the sanctity of life? And yet, they were so caught up in trying to keep the religious laws of purity that they didn’t want to become unclean by touching a potentially dead body. They put compliance ahead of mercy. They stuck to the letter of the law instead of displaying grace and living the spirit of the law.

The one person who does show compassion on the man is a Samaritan. Someone who would have been despised by Jesus’ listeners. They were possibly expecting Jesus to have the third character of the story be a Jewish layperson (a bit like ‘a Scotsman, Englishman and Irishman walked into a pub’ story), where the layperson showed up the Jewish clerics. However, Jesus took the most unlikely of people, a Samaritan, to show true neighbourly mercy, grace and compassion.

And the Samaritan didn’t just take the man to the nearest place of assistance. He provided for his full recovery over potentially many weeks. He went above and beyond what might have been expected of him. He saw a man in need and did all the he could.

Who is our neighbour? It’s hard at the moment to care for others given that we’re still not able to get out and about as much as we would like. But of the people around about us, or those that we connect with during the week, who is in need? To whom can we show mercy and compassion? What is stopping us from doing that? Are we hampered by historical protocols that stop us from caring for others? How do we think about how we give to the poor or say a kind word to the person struggling with life?

The neighbour was the one who had mercy on the man.

Jesus said, “go and do likewise.”