A sharp lawyer-type tries to trick you. In your answer to his question, you turn him to the thing he’s expert at – the law – and there he finds he may not be as sharp as he thought: the law is making him feel a bit guilty, as it should.
So he tries to sidetrack things with a technical question – how do you define “neighbor” anyway?
This is where you can soak up not only what God says, but how he thinks, how he responds, his attitude, his demeanor, and his personality, which are all part of how he influences. He’s going to change the question. But he’s not pointing out that he’s changing the question. He’s not telling the lawyer “wrong question!” Without force or lecture he’s going to make the point he wants to make, changing the conversation and question to his purpose.
Jesus begins to change the question by telling the story of a man attacked on the road. He’s stripped, beaten, robbed, and left for dead. A religious guy, supposedly in a spiritual vocation (like the lawyer asking the question), sees the man but avoids him. Another religious guy does the same. These spiritual guys have roles as go-betweens between God and man, but there’s no God going thru these men to that injured man.
(I’m not too hard on these two. It’s easy to be, since we know the whole story, but I can relate, and I’m a slacker in this, too: Maybe the injured guy’s a criminal and some of his cohorts got mad at him. Maybe those other guys are still around and if I help, they’ll think I’m his friend and I’ll be in trouble, too. Maybe it’s his own fault and he’s all drugged or drunked up. How do I know what happened? See, excuses are easy.)
Then another man, considered very UN-godly by the religious guys, sees the injured man and stops. He has compassion, treats the man’s injuries, loads him up and takes him to an inn where he can recover. He pays for the man’s care and tells the innkeeper to bill him for anything else that has to be done and he’ll settle up when he comes back from his trip to check on the guy.
So the religious men avoid the inured man, but the un-religious guy has mercy, interrupts his plans, goes out of his way, takes care of the fellow and pays for it himself for no reason and with no recognition.
Now, the lawyer had asked, “Who is my neighbor?” and this story is Jesus’ answer. But at the end Jesus doesn’t say to the lawyer, “So, this is who your neighbor is.” Jesus says, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor?” And the lawyer answers, “the one who showed mercy.”
It goes from “who’s my neighbor?” to “are you a neighbor?” Neighbor is not defined by who they are or where they live. A neighbor is a person who shows mercy and compassion to whoever needs it. A neighbor is a person who is a living expression of God’s merciful, compassionate heart towards people. About that, Jesus says, “You go and do likewise” – PROVE to BE a neighbor by SHOWING compassion and mercy.
A neighbor isn’t a them, it’s supposed to be a me. And Jesus’ getting me to that blunt conclusion starts out with an insincere person who wants to trick him and make him look bad. Now, that’s the way to influence.
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