Love Your Neighbor 3

Luke 10:33-35

A few years ago my wife and I came upon a car accident that had just happened. We jumped out of the van and she went to one car while I went to the other. We were fortunate enough to have some spare blankets in the van and we used them to help comfort the drivers.

I helped dab blood from one driver’s face and held her phone up so she could speak to her husband and let him know what happened. I tried to calm her and comfort her, assuring her that everything would be alright.

I had no idea who she was. I had no idea if she was a good person or a bad person, if she lived near me or lived far away. None of that mattered. The drivers needed help and we gave what help we could.

When asked about the Great Commandment – love God, love your neighbor – the expert in the law persists with questions about who is considered a neighbor. Jesus responds with a now familiar story – the parable of the Good Samaritan. What are all the things the Samaritan did? Why do you think he did these things?

We can assume from the details of the story that the injured man is Jewish and we know the other is a Samaritan. What we may not know is that Jews and Samaritans absolutely detested one another because of their different cultures and religious practices.

Yet the Samaritan was able to show love to this Jewish man who had been robbed and left for dead. This Samaritan apparently had the knowledge that all people are children of God. It took knowledge, an awareness that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, to show mercy to an enemy, to love his “neighbor.” He knew that God loves everyone no matter what has happened in their past or how they live now.

The Samaritan had knowledge of how to live out his faith and how to live out goodness. And with that knowledge he added self-control. It took self-control to not hate the injured man, to not delight in his misery. It took self-control to offer compassion to an enemy and to live as a neighbor to the stranger.

We must learn to be like the Samaritan. To our faith and holy goodness we must add the knowledge that helps us understand others. And to that knowledge we must add the self-control it takes to live out love.

DAILY CHALLENGE: How can you build your self-control so that you might be more merciful?