Did you know there are many noble and good things that we ‘believers’ can do...”in the name of the Lord”...that God could be unimpressed by? Things like ‘prophesying and casting out demons’ along with ‘having faith to move mountains, bestowing all our earthly goods to feed the poor...and even offering our bodies/lives to be burned at the stake’...and it still ... ‘profit us nothing’? (Matt. 7:22-23; 1 Cor. 13:1-3)

Yeah...take a moment with that one, if you would.

Jesus was the one who drew this ‘line in the sand’ when He proclaimed that “not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven; but only those who do the will of My Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21).

Which may lead one to ask: “So what exactly is...the ‘will of the Father’? Well for starters, how about we ‘keep the commandments of God’? Jesus said if we loved Him, that’s what we’d do (John 14:15). And you see this echoed throughout John’s first epistle- (1 John 3:-6; 2:17; 5:2-3)

Perhaps you are still uncertain as to what all this ‘obedience’ talk and ‘keeping God’s commandments’ are all about, especially since all we are told these days is to ‘just believe’ or ‘have faith’ and...it’s all by ‘His grace’ that we are saved.

We read in Luke’s gospel where a ‘certain lawyer came to Jesus to test Him’ (10:25) ...wanting to know what he must ‘do’ to inherit eternal life. Jesus pointed him to the law, asking...”What’s written in the law? What is your reading of it?” (26). The lawyer responded that we are to “love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as yourself.” (27)

Jesus applauds the lawyer’s answer, affirming that if he would indeed...’do’ that...he would/could experience this ‘eternal life’ he came asking about. (28)

But then the story takes a twist, and this lawyer, ‘wanting to justify himself’...seeks clarification as to ‘who is his neighbor’? (29). I don’t know about you, but I find nothing wrong with this question, regardless of the motive he has in asking. This in turn, leads to Jesus sharing the well-known story of ‘The Good Samaritan’ (30-37).

Allow me to pause here, and venture off on another point that I want to tie in with this story, and it has to do with the over exposure of needs and suffering that are taking place around our world today. Suffering...is certainly not a new thing, but what is new is how much more we are made aware of the global suffering that takes place around the world on any given day and time...thanks to the technology of print media, TV broadcasting, the internet...and how we all have those ‘devices’ attached to the hip where we are fed ‘news’ around the clock, 24/7. Keep in mind that it’s only in the past 100 years, these devices of messaging have bombarded us with nonstop images, video reels, stories, etc. that highlight the amount of pain and heartbreak that surrounds us.

We’ve all seen the images of starving children in the Sudan...the ‘genocide’ that has swept various parts of the world, victims of numerous wars, etc. Here in our own country it’s the steaming flow of images every time a flood, or tornado, or hurricane strikes leaving a trail of damage in its wake. So many ‘needs’ that can overwhelm the human soul. Much has been written how we are simply not ‘wired’ to handle and process so much tragedy and heartbreak; and it can harden us... to which I’d have to agree. This is why I think the question the lawyer asked Jesus is a fair question. And I love the answer Jesus gives him.

You can read the text on your own, which I assume you are already familiar with it; but how’s this for a ‘summary’- Jesus is suggesting that our ‘neighbor’ is the one in need, who is staring us directly in our face, right in front of us on the current path we are taking. Jesus did not use in his example... suffering people in Africa, typhoon victims in Bangladesh, wildfire victims, or any other wide assortment of tragedy. You can probably see that this list could go on and on with plenty of other scattered examples. So why not start in our own backyard first if/when we want to take up arms to aid the helpless and oppressed.

This even fits in with the narrative Jesus lays out just before He returns to heaven, as recorded in Acts 1. He’s encouraging His followers to ‘tarry until they are endued with power from on high...where they will in turn go out and be ‘witnesses...first in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria and eventually the rest of the world (5-8). But it has to start at home, first. And interestingly, that word ‘witness’ comes from a Greek word which is the same word we get the word ‘martyr’ from, implying a need to ‘lay down one’s life’. My takeaway from that is if we can’t be a witness in our own ‘Jerusalem’, our own ‘home’...how can we be an effective witness anywhere else? Now that’s not to say that God won’t move us out at some point in time, because that usually is the plan and occasionally, He even has to use a little ‘heat’ to get us there (Acts 8:1)

But back to our parable- the main focus of the story does not center around ‘why’ this ‘certain man’ fell among thieves and was beaten and robbed. He certainly was not a ‘worse sinner’ than anyone else of that day (Luke 13:2,4). The focus is directed on the person who stopped and got involved and rendered aid, while pointing out the ones who went out of their way to avoid ‘getting involved’ (people who were more than familiar with the law).

Jesus uses a ‘Samaritan’ who was the one who ‘wore a cape’ that day. If you were not aware of this, Samaritans were looked down upon in the most unfavorable way by their Jewish neighbors. Call them the ‘undesirables’ or the ‘deplorables’ for a host of reasons, but that is who Jesus highlights as the one who was truly....fulfilling the law. And on a sidenote here – the Samaritan did what was within the scope of his power and ability to do at that moment in time...and it was enough. He did not get diverted with his ‘journey’ and began to build shelters for crime victims on that road, nor anything similar. He did what he could in that moment with the circumstances he was faced with at the time. And both Jesus and the lawyer agreed he was the one who had...shown mercy. That’s when Jesus instructed the lawyer: “Now go and do likewise”.

Are you familiar with the story of the starfish, where someone came up on an older man who was on the beach surrounded by thousands of starfish that had washed up on the shore and were doomed to dry up and die? He was picking up individual starfish and tossing them back in to the ocean. When asked by a passerby what difference he was hoping to make among so many helpless starfish, he responded by saying...”It makes a difference to this one”, as he continued to toss them back into the water.

Go...and do likewise.