10.25: Now then, a specialist in the Law stood up to challenge (Jesus) and said: "Teacher, what must I do to obtain eternal life?" 26 (Jesus) answered him: "What is written in the Law? How do you read (it)?" (The specialist in the Law) answered him: "You will love the Lord your God from your whole heart, that is, you will love God with your whole soul, your whole strength, and your whole understanding, and (you shall love) your neighbour as (you love) yourself." 28 Jesus said to him:" you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live."

29 But (the specialist in the Law), wanting to save face, said to Jesus: "And, who is my neighbour?" 30 Jesus took up the challenge and replied: "Once a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves who stripped him and struck him with blows and fled leaving him half-dead. 31 By chance, a priest was going down that same road and seeing (the man) he passed by on the opposite side. 32 Likewise a Levite, coming to the place and seeing (the man), passed by on the opposite side. 33. But, a Samaritan who was making his way came up to (the man), saw, and was moved with compassion, 34 and coming to (the man) he dressed his wounds, anointing them with oil and wine, and setting him upon his own animal he led him to an inn and he cared for him there. 35 The next day he gave two days worth of wages to the innkeeper and said: Care for him and whatsoever you spend (on him), when I pass by here again I will repay you. 36. Which of these three does it seem to you became a neighbour to the one who fell among thieves?" 37 He said: "The one who showed mercy to him." Jesus then said to him: "Go and you do likewise."

"Love". What a many splendoured thing. What do you think of when you hear the word "love"? Oh, I think I know. "How do I love, thee? Let me count the ways." We think of love, usually between a man and a woman. We talk about love scenes in a film. Usually it is romantic.

We might also think further of love for our children or our parents, love of country, love of church.

Love can also be that very special liking for something that is special: love of my new car. "I really love your new hairdo." "I love going shopping." "I love going fishing."

In earlier days, though, including the day of Jesus love meant something very different. Love was what an inferior showed to a superior. Wives loved their husbands, not vice versa. Children loved their parents, not vice versa. Even slaves loved their masters, but certainly not vice versa. To say "I love you" meant "I will serve you".

So, it is not surprising that the greatest of all the commandments in the Jewish tradition was the statement by God's people: We will love, that is, we will serve you, God, with all that we are. The Jewish people were not telling their God how much they had fallen in love with God, as a man might tell a woman, or how much they liked him, as a man might say he loves fishing. We love you meant We serve you.

And likewise: you will love your neighbour, means "you will serve your neighbour". You might not like your neighbour: doesn't matter. You needn't be in love with your neighbour. You will serve your neighbour.

So,it the story that Jesus tells, which of the three men really loves his neighbour, that is, which of the three serves his neighbour? It's not too difficult to say. The priest and the levite might have very important jobs. Fine. But, only the Samaritan serves the man on the road.

And how he serves him! He kneels down, he binds up his wounds, he anoints the man with wine and oil, he picks the man up and puts him on his beast of burden, he takes the man to an inn -- we're not told that it's on his way, he stays with the man, and when he does have to go, he gives the inn-keeper enough money to care for the man and promises him more if it takes more.

Would you agree that the Samaritan serves the man? Sure does, says the lawyer.

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Now, Jesus doesn't on on to talk about what is implied in this story. He leaves that up to his hearers, like you and me, to figure out. So let's look at two implications.

First, that Samaritan loved that man whom he had never met before that day when he just happened to become his neighbour by coming across him on the road. The priest and the levite had also probably not met the man before. Jesus doesn't say that they were his neighbours back in Jerusalem or in Jericho. But, they, too, had become his neighbours by walking by him on the road. And they clearly didn't serve him.

But, what is more important here is that whether they had ever met the man before, they were likely his neighbours in a way that the Samaritan wasn't, even before they met him. For the man on the road is in all likelihood a Jew. It is true that the story doesn't say that, but it would have been expected that the person was a Jew. And, both the priest and levite, as well as the lawyer asking Jesus the question "who is my neighbour?" knew the answer to that question for any Jew. It was a trick question as posed to Jesus, but Jesus didn't fall for it. A Jew's neighbour was "any other Jew", that is, any other member of the clan of people from among all the people of the world who carries in his blood the genes of our ancestor Jacob, also called Israel. A Jew's neighbour didn't necessarily have to live beside him. A Jew could live anywhere, usually in Israel, but anywhere in Israel. And, my job as a Jew was not only to serve God with my whole being but also to serve my fellow Jews. To provide for them if they came to my house in need without asking them to repay me, to give them shelter and food, to watch over them in case of danger.

But, this only applies to Jews. I do NOT have to serve the other peoples of the world. In fact, the scholars of the Law knew just how much Israel had to protect itself from the other peoples of the world, strangers, aliens, untrustworthy. If you think that the Chinese are xenophobic today you should have seen Israel from the time of the Judges to the time of Jesus.

And yet it is not two individuals who represent the very best that Israel has to offer -- Temple worship of God Almighty -- who evidence the service of another unfortunate member of the family, the clan, of Israel that day on the road. That poor, unfortunate man is not served by two individuals who were the man's neighbour before he fell among thieves and who just happen to have their faces rubbed in the fact that they are his neighbour when they happen to walk by the man that day on the road. That man is served by a man of the clan of Samaria, a clan that the Israelites had been taught to hate, with as much anger as members of the clan of the Serbians have been taught to hate members of the clan of Kosovo, as members of the tribe of the Hutus have been taught to hate members of the tribe of Tutsis, with as much anger as members of the English Canadian clan were once taught to hate members of the clan of French Canada, and vice versa. That man on the road that day is served by one from whom no one in Jesus' audience expected it. In fact, when the Samaritan gets to the man, everyone in Jesus' audience is waiting for him to go in for the kill and finish off what the earlier thieves didn't finish.

So, if what love meant was the way the Law uses it, and that's what Jesus, the lawyer, and everyone around hearing the story would have understood, namely, service, then, Jesus is not only giving a very compelling picture of service, but is also telling a story to the lawyer that suggests that perhaps the lawyer and his like-minded ethno-centric religionists are going to have to think twice himself about who his "neighbour" is.

Do you realise what profound implications this story has for the way the people of God had always thought of others around them? The Jews had always thought of the need first of all to support and uphold those who were like them. That was their first priority. And, that included defending their own from all strangers and aliens who were always suspect in the eyes of the Jews. Oh, sure, if there was anything left over, then, a stranger like Ruth might be allowed to pick up the scraps that were left over, once Israel and the clan had been provided for. But, "love"? "serve"? One would only do that for those of the clan.

This is the way it has always been in the world among clans: Serbs and Kosovars, Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda, ethnic Javanese of Indonesia and East Timorese of Indonesia. First and foremost provide for your own and in doing so watch out for those who are not members of the clan. That includes instilling hatred against the one who is different, even if they live close and are in fact "neighbours". This is what the Jews were taught by the scholars of the Law. This is also what the Samaritans had been taught by their leaders about Israel.

But, Jesus begins to change all that. He begins to show how anyone you come across is your neighbour. Literally, anyone you draw near to, enough if it's only accidentally, is suddenly your neighbour. Even if it's your enemy. And so, this Samaritan who happens to come across an enemy, serves him. Paul will come across idol-worshipers, people he had been taught to abhor, and he will serve them by healing their sick and preaching to them the good news of Jesus. Jesus will come across Jewish sinners, traitors, and Roman soldiers and will treat each of them as a neighbour in serving them.

Don't let anyone ever try to convince you that the way things are here in Canada, where we have begun to treat the other as one who deserves our service simply because we are there to do so, comes from any other place than from the profound implications of the message of Jesus. Sure, that message has been perverted over the years. In fact, look at how long it has taken and how difficult it still is even for us in Canada simply to serve others with all that we have because they are around us. When the neighbourhood changes around our parish, we might wish to go back to the old days when there was just "our" clan around here, but that's just not the way things have happened. You and I have just happened to continue on a road where we have happened to come across people of different ethnic background, religion, socio-economic categories. They are our neighbours simply because they happen to be there. And, through Christ, we have the ability to serve them. Jesus is doubtless saying to us as he said to the legal scholar: so, if you know that, go and do likewise. And that message is at the foundation of our Christian faith and tradition and is like no other faith or tradition in that foundation.

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But, there is one more piece of this puzzle. Service, as you know, can become a perfunctory job, done because it has to be done. It can be done, but it can be done with a grudge -- I have to help this so-and-so and though I don't want to I guess I will. Yeah, we can help out at the Debra-Dynes housing, at the police station, in meals-on-wheels, at the Perley Rideau, whatever it might be but I'm doing it because someone asked me to do it. That may be doing good deeds. But it's not really service in the way our Scriptures speak about it as "love".

No: look at what the text says about the Samaritan's service of the wounded man: he looked and he was moved with compassion. The text says of all three individuals who happen to come by the road that day that they "saw" the man. All three individuals saw the man and likely knew what was needed. But the text says only of the Samaritan that when he looked, he was moved with compassion. And not surprisingly, it is the Samaritan who loves the man, that is, who serves him.

Something that is absolutely required if you are going to love your neighbour, that is, if you are going to serve your neighbour, is that you be moved by your neighbour's condition. You can probably do good for your neighbour just be doing the job assigned to you to serve your neighbour. But, it's not really service.

Why? Because service, true service, demands that you be prepared to go as far as you need to go to serve with all that you are, as you would be served. And if your job says that service means that you will stay with this person for 30 minutes and at the end of 30 minutes you get up and walk out even though the person needs you to stay for 30 days, that's not true service. The only way you will be prepared to serve to the end is if you are moved in your depths by seeing your neighbour's need.

Now, I realise what I'm saying here and I'm not being impractical and unrealistic. The Samaritan DID stay with the man as long as he could, but he had to leave. Perhaps his job demanded it; perhaps his family was waiting for him. But, he could leave money to help with the man's care. And he did.

How much more true is this of our love of God? Truly to love God with our whole being, that is, to serve God with all that we have and are, is not a job. It is something that we must be moved profoundly to do by seeing how necessary our service of God is. If we see it as a job, something that we are simply going to do for 30 minutes or an hour and then be done with it, we will not be willing to spend the time, the money and the energy that God demands of us when we need to go beyond the 30 minutes or the hour truly to serve God. The proof: look at the love of God for you: God's service for you, what God has done for you, and the lengths to which God has gone in his love of you.

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Let me conclude.

First, the lawyer and Jesus both understood by love something that you and I need to see to get the point of this story. Love does not mean anything romantic. It does not mean really liking. It means serving. To live forever demands true service of God and true service of our neighbour.

Second, when it comes to our neighbour, that true service is to be extended to anyone who comes within our reach, be it a family member or an enemy. And it is not just that way because that's a neat philosophy: it's that way because God has given us the example in Jesus of coming near us and ministering to our needs, or serving us, even while we were yet sinners. Jesus demanded of no one that they become perfect before he would serve them; he served them, he loved them. Some of them probably did become his followers, hundreds more probably said "thank you" and went off to resume their lives. It didn't matter to Jesus. But, in doing what he did, he began to break the long-cycle of sentiment that still surrounds us yet: I will only serve those who are just like me. Jesus continues to break through that sentiment wherever that sentiment yields to another, which is that in Christ I will love, I will serve, all with whom I come in contact, whether they are like me or not, whether they like me or not, even to the point of hating me.

And, finally, "God so loved the world" that when he came alongside the world and all the needy, he was moved with compassion. Not only did he not pass by on the other side of the universe, leaving us to our own devices; he came, knelt down and began to tend to our wounds. He saw, like so many have seen, but rather than stand back and not get involved, he got very involved because he was so moved with compassion. In fact, his compassion led him to get so involved that he went ALL the way to the end. They killed him and nailed him to a cross because he spent too long ministering to the needy he just happened to come across.

My friends, if we get the message of this story, then, we will have no doubt that in our lives what we are now called to do is "go and do likewise" and we will know exactly what it is we need to do when we meet whomever God happens to bring across our road this week.