October 28
Scripture focus: Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?” He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live." Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?" Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man. "A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I'll pay you on my way back.' "What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" "The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same." Luke 10:25-31 The Message
I love this story.
I love how a religious scholar shows up and asks a question, fully intending to test Jesus. He isn’t asking from an urgent desire to know and do God’s will. He is asking so that he might test and accuse. I really appreciate his position. Lots of days I ask questions of God, not so much because I want to hear his answer, more likely because I’m putting his love for me to the test.
Jesus knew this about the scholar; he knows it about me.
If he wanted, he could have shamed and embarrassed this guy to pieces.
But instead, he showed respect for the questioner and gave an apt reply. He managed along the way to give the scholar a word of affirmation (“good answer”) and he provided him an opportunity for a follow up question.
Not once, but twice, Jesus took good care of a man in need of healing, transforming and creating.
Spiritual renewal, as modeled in the life of Jesus, heals us enough to care more about another’s wounds than our own, be transformed in such a way as to respond to another’s suffering even if it costs us something in the process, and ultimately reveals our true God-created identity.
This miraculous stuff happens to people like the religious scholar, me, and you too. Because we’ve worked hard and have earned his respect? No way. Because Jesus - a living, breathing, son of God healer, transformer and conformer loves like that.
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