Week 24: What Does Love Require?

A Year in the Life of Jesus | Luke 10:25-37

There's a classic Peanuts comic strip in which Linus declares, “I love mankind ... It's people I can't stand!” It's funny because it exposes something uncomfortably true about us. Humanity is relatively easy to love from a distance. We can care deeply about poverty, loneliness, injustice, and suffering in the abstract. But what happens when a real person shows up? Someone whose crisis is complicated, whose needs require more time than we have, or whose presence interrupts our carefully arranged plans? Suddenly, loving our neighbor moves from the inspirational beauty of the abstract to the inconvenient messiness of real life.

In Luke 10, an expert in the Jewish Law approaches Jesus with a question about inheriting eternal life. Jesus turns the question back on him, and the man correctly identifies the two great commandments: love God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself. But Luke tells us that the man, wanting to justify himself, asks another question: “Who is my neighbor?” Beneath his question lies something familiar to us all. How much love is enough? Where does my responsibility end? What if loving this person costs me more than I want to give?

Rather than offering definitions or terms and conditions, Jesus tells a story about a wounded man lying beside the road. A priest sees him and passes by. A Levite sees him and does the same. Finally, a Samaritan sees him and stops. All three recognize the need. The difference isn't awareness; it's what they do with what they see.

Jesus never tells us why the first two men passed by, and perhaps that silence creates room for us to examine our own explanations. We're already running late. We have enough going on. Surely someone else is better equipped to help. Sometimes our limitations are legitimate. We are finite people with real responsibilities and necessary boundaries. But sometimes our internal negotiations are less about wisdom and more about protecting ourselves from inconvenience. As John Mark Comer observes, “Hurry and love are incompatible.” What we call an interruption is oftentimes an invitation to love someone.

The Samaritan offers a different vision. His compassion moves beyond sympathy into action. He treats the man's wounds, carries him to safety, and provides for his ongoing care. His mercy costs him time, energy, and resources. He gives the wounded man what he actually needs, not simply what is convenient for him to offer. Jesus then turns the lawyer's question upside down. Instead of identifying who qualifies as our neighbor, Jesus invites us to become the kind of people who love. “Go and do the same.”

But the story also points us toward something deeper. We may recognize ourselves in the priest, the Levite, or even the Samaritan. Yet we must also recognize ourselves in the wounded man, helpless and unable to rescue himself. Before we could ever extend the mercy of Jesus to others, we desperately needed His mercy ourselves. The miracle of the Gospel is not that we are justified by becoming good neighbors. We are justified by being in Christ, and His mercy forms us into people who increasingly love as He loves.

The Gospel doesn't simply command us to love. It forms us into people who are increasingly free to love. We move toward others because Jesus first moved toward us. This is the way of Jesus.