Biblical Text: Luke 10:25-37
Note: The recording is a re-recording after the fact. We had a recording error real time.
Wants and needs are two different things. We want to justify ourselves, or maybe better put we want to be able to “do this and you will live.” There are lots of ways of being dishonest with ourselves to justify doing evil, but Paul’s “elementary spirits” (Galatians 4, call it the natural law) usually call us out. It is really hard to lie to yourself all the time. It is easier to justify leaving things left undone. That’s the lawyers tactic. “Who is my neighbor?” Who can I exclude from the circle of love and still satisfy the law. The sermon notes a recent cultural conversation stumbled into by the Vice President. And like all our cultural conversations these days, it was completely warped by our polarization. Because there is a way that the VP was correct in quoting the order of love. We are limited creatures. And call it the other ditch, we can often be sinful in helping out abstract far away neighbor while those in our direct care – on our daily roads – lie beaten and half dead. There is also a way that he could be wrong which is this lawyer’s question. Can I exclude people as too far away to care about? This is the very cutting edge of the law. It always convicts. All humanity is our neighbor.
But the biggest reason all humanity is our neighbor is because Christ has crossed the road and embraced all of humanity. Christ has bound our wounds, and placed us in care and promises to return and repay anything. We want to be able to talk our way in; we’ve been given mercy. You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. And then you go and show mercy to those in your walk.
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