Who is my neighbour? - Lyndon Rumsey

Luke 10:25-37

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.”

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TRANSCRIPT

 

Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.

I love this passage of scripture, but it's so familiar to us, isn't it? And, you know, every day. In fact, twice this week when I'm watching the news on TV, they referred to someone who is doing some sort of an act as being a good Samaritan. It's so familiar to us, you know, we read headlines like Mother Praises Good Samaritan who saved his son on a busy road, a good Samaritan injured while trying to stop thieves.

It's just such a common thing. And it's amazing, isn't it? I don't know any verse of scripture that so common, so colloquially used. You know, politicians over the years have used these terms as well. Margaret Thatcher as, British Prime minister, claimed that the wealthy should have further tax breaks so that it would have the means to help those less fortunate.

To be a good Samaritan. She said. And George Bush, when he was American president and he led his troops into Iran, claimed this was an example of being a good Samaritan because they were crossing the road to help those people in need. Really, I, I haven't read this book yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Nick Spencer, a British researcher in theology, published a book entitled The Political Somatic and How Pot Power Hijacked a Parable.

We use it. So for me, these words about the Good Samaritan, we know the story. We've we've heard it 100 times over. And one of the problems with that is that we miss sometimes a fresh reading where God wants to speak to us. So can we have the first slide? Jeremy, thank you. Yeah. So the teacher of the law asked, Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Now, I don't know why he was asking whether this was some sort of trap. Every time I read that teacher of the law, I'm always concerned about what, What what is the teacher of law up to? What's he trying to do here? But anyway, I ask the question and Jesus replies, 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.

Well, that all sounds very simple, doesn't it? Simple in the way the words are, but it's actually so complicated, so difficult to do. So today I wanted to talk about understand ending. Who is your neighbor? You know, there's the person next door. There's the person you're sitting next to you now, but there's a lot more to it. You know, parables are stories which Jesus often uses, where he takes an everyday situation where people are so familiar with it, and then he draws out a spiritual truth from it that contrasts, someone I remember when I first became a believer, someone said parables, earthly stories with heavenly meanings.

Well, anyway, we need to seek and understand who is our neighbor. Can we have the next slide, please? Jeremy. Thank you. Jeremy. He's got a couple of help us out there so you can do this gentleman, which is great to say. So a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and when he fell into the hands of robbers, they stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

You know, the journey from Jerusalem to Jericho is about 21km. It's about the equivalent of walking from Hornsby to Parramatta. But it's said that it's very steep and has a descent descent of 3500ft, and it's well known. It's a dangerous trip because there's lots of robbers now. We don't know why this man was taking this trip. He must have been aware of the fact that robbers are there and it's difficult, but he needs to take the trip.

And the end result is, of course, he gets attacked by robbers, beaten up and left lying in the dirt, half dead. His body would have been bloodied and caked with dirt and he was in a real mess. But we don't know anything about him. The parable actually is the story just doesn't tell us a name for him, doesn't name him, doesn't tell us you know what his name?

Age, his age, his nationality. We don't know whether he's married, whether he's got children. We don't know what he does for a living because none of those things seem important. But the man is a complete stranger, and he's a complete stranger to every other person described in the story. You know, in many ways, strangers are just people we haven't met yet, aren't they?

There's nothing. We we dismiss them and we walk around them and we ignore them. But they just people we haven't met yet.

We spend most of our time looking after ourselves, don't we? And our loved ones. And I guess that's primarily what we want to do. But all those strangers we walk past, I think my normal week and my normal week, I made at least one person that I haven't met before. They might be a relative of someone in the residence which I work in, or they might be someone I made at the shops or or somewhere, and they're complete strangers.

But we need to understand that, to understand who is my neighbor? We have the next one, please, Jeremy. Thank you.

Next, we read that a priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. And so to a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he passed by on the other side by for these people. These men hold important positions in the church, the temple in those days.

The praise, of course, is called by God to serve him. The Levites, very similar. But you and I belong to a priesthood to one Peter two nine says, and I think Morris used this verse last week, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a people belonging to God. We're like that priest. We too are called to serve God in all different ways.

We might be called priests, but we are priests where people who take the Word of God and we share it with people through our actions and our words, through our thoughts. That's what we do. But processing what this priest is busy. If he's running a temple, he's too busy. He's got somewhere else to go to. It's not his problem.

So he crosses over the road. And then there's this Levite. You know, Levites were highly esteemed. They are a privileged position there to help the priests conduct all the things that go on in the temple. And we could namedrop some of them. There's so many important people that were Levites in the Bible, people like Moses, Aaron, Samuel, Ezekiel, Malachi, Barnabas, John the Baptist, even the basketball riders Matthew and Mark are all Levites.

They're important people. I don't know what quite the equivalent would be in today's church. Maybe. Maybe it's those that belong to our church council or those who head up programs in our church. Maybe they're the equivalent of the modern day equivalent of the Levite. But just like the priest, the Levite sees the man and crosses the road. You and I might judge their actions say they were so, so awful that they crossed the road, but as yourself, have you ever crossed the road and ignored someone with the need I know I have?

Why do it? Why do we do that? We say, well, we're not involved and there's risk involved. The person might be dangerous. All of those things. We promote all those things as good ways to look after ourselves. But in crossing that road, the priest and the Levite failed to understand who is their neighbor. And then we come to the Samaritan.

He's the real hero of the story, isn't he? Well, we all want to identify with him. We might not want to be a priest or a Levi, but we're all. We would all like to think that we're a Samaritan, but a Samaritan as he traveled. Can we that next slide, please? Thank you. You've already got it there. Thank you.

Take good. 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, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to the inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins 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. I like Jesus, he's. He's clever. Here. He's chosen a Samaritan to represent the person who does well. Knowing what Jews think of Samaritans, you know, the Jews thought Samaritans were racially and ethnically and theologically impure. The Samaritans were descendants of those who were left in the North when when the Assyrians invaded Israel and Jerusalem and they took they took the Jews out of there.

But the Samaritans kind of remained. And then the Samaritans did all the things that we do say. Well, they tried to fit into the world they were in. They intermarried. They got to know people, and they became part of that. And of course, the Samaritans didn't believe in Jerusalem is such a great place. Their place of worship was Mount Gerizim.

They rejected the Jewish Bible. They only accepted the first five books. That Pentateuch, as they as the real Scripture say, for the average Jew, they and the average Samaritan, both of them at height at each other. Oh, at very least disliked each other. So Jesus parable picks up the story of a Samaritan to tell a Jewish teacher of the law is clever.

Jesus, isn't he? It really likes to rub it in. When he tells you something, he digs deep into you. And so the Samaritan man sees a complete stranger and he gets involved because he happens to be there. I wonder how often you and I are meant to get involved, but we cross the road. We look the other way.

We we convince ourselves that has nothing to do with us. It gets down and he bathes the man's wounds and he binds them. He pours on oil and wine, and then he places him on his donkey, and he takes him to an inn, taking care of him, and pays the innkeeper for his care and his and his future care.

I think Mary, in the newsletter this week said, you know, imagine you took him to, would you take him to a hospital and take care of him? What happens if he doesn't get medical cover? Would you would you hang around to pay the bill, or would you take him to a hotel? And Mary made the comment. You'd have to say to him, please don't use the minibar.

You know what I mean? Buys like that, you know, they cost three times the price. What would you have done? Would you have helped him? Would you take a stranger and do a lacing? Helping people is messy, and it's also a very inconvenient. There's a cost, and we need to take a risk and be vulnerable. You know, we're told to be wary of strangers, but you have to take a risk.

Could we have the next slide, please, Jeremy? Thank you.

This picture here is by Vincent Van Goff. And if you have a look at the Samaritan man he's struggling to put the man on his donkey. And there's a lot of other pieces of art that I could have put in there. But it's a struggle, isn't it? I like this picture. You can say the Samaritan man is struggling in himself and the other man is pretty hopeless.

He was half dead and he's being put on the on the donkey. But it's a reminder to you and I that helping people is costly if you think it comes easy, but just because you think this is what God wants you to do, God doesn't always make it easy for us. He wants you to do it. But it's costly.

It's difficult. You know, we live in this community where there's so many people with needs. There are those that are hungry. You know, we see we see some of those people have hands and feet on a Monday here. We see them, you know, people there in the past have told me if you if I didn't collect this box of food now, I don't know what it'd be on the table by Wednesday night.

I've never been that hungry. And I imagine some of you might have been. They are that hungry for things. There's many people with different needs, and there's people with disabilities struggling just to do the normal things that you and I do. They're so hard. And there's the sick. Some that are chronically sick. Yes, we we rightly so. Pray for people in hospital that we know, but there are some that have ongoing sickness that just doesn't go away.

It's so hard for them. And then there's those with addictions. Alcohol and drugs are rife in our community, and we might stay away from them because we don't know how exactly they're going to react. But I, I have a great need. We need to ask God whether we need to act and help in those situations. And then some who are new to this country and they're struggling to assimilate.

And yes, their English is in great. They struggle to speak and tell you what what they want. And that must be so frustrating to them doesn't mean they're not intelligent. Good morning judge, how are you?

George wants to be up here, I think. But you know, I can cope with that. And then perhaps even more hidden and more frequently are those that are lonely. Lonely? Do you know people that are lonely? I talk to people every week who have families, and I've residents where I work and definitely residents and I talk about their loneliness.

It doesn't mean they're not. They don't have people around them, but they are lonely. I love that we run the men's shed. It's one of the blessings of the men's shed is that a lot of the guys go there. Not so much to learn the skills, but they learn to go there because they're lonely. Will you take the time to stop and and get to know them and talk to them to be a good Samaritan?

May I suggest to reach out to them?

We have the next slide. Oh no it's not. Forget that. Stay where you are. I didn't put it up there. I love what one Peter 410 says. It says each one should use whatever gift he's receive to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. God's church is meant to be that sort of place. It's meant to be a place where we excuse me, where we help strangers, where people can come in and find acceptance and love, where we share generously what we have.

Yes. We pray that those people will find faith, and some will and some won't. So what, I ask you, where you cross the road.

Or stay on the same road. On the same course. And reach out to those people who have needs. And in doing so, will you discover what it truly means to be a neighbor, to understand who is your neighbor? If the band want to come up now? Thank you. When I think about this parable, my own efforts fall so short.

There is so many times I've I've walked around, people pretended not to notice or not really met people's needs. So may I encourage you? Will you be open to reaching out to strangers? Those people that you haven't met yet, get out and share with them the love of Jesus. Will you also reflect on all those times that you ignored the needs of others and learned some lessons from it?

Because that's what we're meant to do? And thirdly, will you respond to the Holy Spirit who wants to show you who is your neighbor? Let me pray first. Dear Lord, this area is so hard. The parable is so simple, but the area of need is so great and I have concerns and things sometimes overwhelm us. Lord, will you help us to understand?

And will you show us who is our neighbor? And I pray this in Jesus name. I mean.

Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.

Be blessed.