Like a Good Neighbor - Love Well

State Farm’s jingle, “Like A Good Neighbor,” is effective in advertising not just because it is a catchy tune, but because like a good neighbor they are there when needed. There is no prequalification as to race, ideology, religion, etc. They even show up for cone heads in outerspace. They don’t check to make sure your values align with theirs. No. For their customers, at least the paying ones, if you need them they are there.

When I first received today’s passages (Genesis 1:27, 31 and Luke 10:25-37) I wondered how to reconcile the two. How do you move from “All of it was good!” to a nitpicky expert in the law wanting clarification on who exactly he needed to love in order to enter heaven. There is such a big jump there. From perfection to dissection.

Click here to listen to the audio

So much is lost in translation. When we say in Genesis 1:31 that God looked at creation and said it was very good it’s like saying Michaelangelo stepped back from creating David and said, “oh that’s nice.” The same Hebrew word that we translate into very in this verse can also be translated into exceedingly, abundance of, greatly, force, and muchness. And we stick to very. In the message it translates it as “God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!” Of the translations I’ve looked at I think this get’s closer to a creator stepping back from her work and declaring – that! That right there! I nailed it and it is breathtakingly amazing.

Then fast forward a few years, ok a couple thousand years, and God comes back to earth as Jesus. Because well we need him to help restore that goodness. We’ve messed up and lost our focus, we’ve missused creation and fallen from our creator so he shows up to restore us to that breathtakingly amazing that had been created for us. And we start to nitpick the details.

An expert in the law stood up and tried to stump Jesus. And in true Jesus fashion he responded with a question. The lawyer wasn’t satisfied and tried to turn the question back on Christ asking him to define his terms. He needed clarification as to who exactly his neighbors were. Don’t we all want that? We need a list of tasks to check off and say ok done. We want to know the bare minimum to get by. Love doesn’t work like that and neither does God.

Loopholes and Nitpicking

I have to wonder with this question if this expert was looking for a loophole. But if our first verse from Genesis 1:31 is true, if God looked at what God had created and said “All of it was good, so very good!” then why is it hard to love our neighbors, after all they are God’s creation. And shouldn’t it be easy to love what is good? I know there have been a few people in my own life that I’ve struggled with loving, some that you hear them walking your direction and all you want to do is run and hide. But God called us to stop, to turn around and to love them as Christ loved them.

Christ did not answer this expert of the law by saying the man or woman beside you, or the one who lives righteously, or those with the same nationality/view points/ religious affiliation/ or politics. No. That would have been to easy. Christ just doesn’t do easy. Instead he took the burden off of the one receiving help entirely and placed it solely on the one who witnessed the need.

After all the one bleeding and dying on the side of the road isn’t capable of anything. Breathing is his sole focus, crying out for help appears to exceed his capabilities.

To busy to help

The two religious leaders in the story, the two one would expect or at least hope would extend aide, for whatever reason went out of their way to avoid the injured man’s need. Instead a Samaritan (whom Jews thought very little of) extended unconditional help.

As always, when Christ starts talking to or about the religious leaders, I feel convicted. I’ve walked across the street before out of busyness, not knowing how to meet a need, or just not even seeing it. I get so caught up in the demands of ministry at times that I miss the one laying at my feet (Who is Your Neighbor).

Busyness and scheduled goodness do not excuse me or you.

Our neighbors are more reachable today then they probably ever have been before. During the industrial age discussing who are neighbors are would have been quite different. Our neighbors might be that co-worker one or two cubicles over who grates on our nerves because they don’t see the world as we do. It might be the person whose ethnicity is not the same as ours (like the Jew and the Samaritan in today’s reading). Or the person who goes to that other church down the road, the weird one that doesn’t do things like us. And all of those people, the people we see daily that baffle us in the workplace or at the grocery store or on the street corner, are our neighbors and we should love them as Christ did.

But… A New Time. A New Neighbor

We’ve left the Industrial Age and entered the Engagement Era. Neighbors we have never met face to face enter our living rooms, our bedrooms, and yes even our bathrooms with their ideas, rants, and passions via social media. We live in a time where relationships are more important then the bottom dollar. Being known and doing good is more important then the product being sold. Our world has gone social and it has shrunk considerably. We have more access to our neighbors then ever before. Buisness models are built on relationships with competititors and customers. The world is becoming transparent and it is good, so very good.

As a teen I remember going to a youth group conference where we were told one day we will stand before Christ and all of our sins will be displayed for all to see. It will be like big movie screens before the world playing this is your life. I was terrified. But it’s already happening. Our lives are displayed on screens, big and small, carried around in people’s pockets and scrolled through in their hands, sometimes even on their watch screens.

We don’t hide who we are or what we belive in our closets. We share it with each other and we find a tribe to support us as we do (whether they are virtual or face to face). Love has become the buzz word of our faith and our country. Whether we are living the truth of it or not we are hashtagging the heck out of #LoveWins.

Whether we are living the truth of it or not we are hashtagging the heck out of #LoveWins Click To Tweet

We are being transparent about who and what we are. And it is so very good. Because when we aren’t transparent we begin to believe the lies ourselves. We miss the fact that Christ is talking to us and he isn’t patting us on the back saying well done you are the Samaritan in this story. No. He is showing us our faults. He is saying you are the two who walk by and don’t stop and you let others love when it is you I have called to love.

Love only wins if we are giving it away.

Christ is giving us a way to restore the goodness that was created in the beginning. He came to redeem us through his death on the cross and resurrection. Christ is only asking us to love those he loves. To love his creation, the creation he first called good.

Jesus is increasing our understanding of what it is God is asking of us. Jesus is drawing us a little closer to understanding God. Our creator is asking for our hearts.

When the expert in the law said, “The Scriptures say, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.’ They also say, ‘Love your neighbors as much as you love yourself.” He was in fact defining a practicle way in which to love the Lord.

But how is the second like the first? How is loving our neighbor the same as loving God? (Having A Servant’s Heart -How is loving your neighbor the same as loving God?)

Mathew 25:31-46 holds answers.

It‘s pretty long, so here’s the summary.

God comes back and seperates people. Some on his right and some on his left. To those on his right he says you are blessed, come with me to heaven because “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to me.” And those on his right are confused. They aren’t sure when they did these things. The answer, “when you did it for each other, even the least of them, you did it to me.”

That Jew on the side of the road, the one who was beaten and left for dead, he probably wouldn’t have done the same for the Samaritan who helped him. But that is the point really. We help those who can’t help themselves and we expect nothing (not even kindness) in return. After all Christ loved his neighbors and they nailed him to a cross.

So what does it look like to live a life where our heart’s intent is to love and honor God. It is in loving others. (The Heart of the Matter: Is it sacrifice, obedience, or the heart of the matter that is important?)

The ultimate application of the good Samaritan is to love those who never would have loved you first, who are unable to return the favor, and may never understand your why. Love the broken, the unlovable, the ones who aren’t able to love you back.

The goodness of God should be stuck in our heads like a bad jingle that has to get out. It should be like that commercial with Peyton Manning where everytime he speaks the tune comes out with him. We should be so overflowing with the understanding of God’s goodness that it seeps out in every interaction, with everyone we are called to love.