Luke 10:25-37

We did another scripture study tonight.
I think I'll try to do these consistently.
And hopefully they'll eventually sound more professional.
here's what I sent to our study group:

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I kind of like writing these. This one won't be as involved though.

Luke 10: 25-37

A man who studied Jewish law asked Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life.
Jesus asks him how he reads the law.
The man replies with the 2 great commandments (Found in Deut 6 and Lev 18, I believe) of loving the Lord and loving your neighbor.
Jesus says yeah. do that.
so the guy asks who is neighbor is. I guess he didn't feel that the law was clear enough on that.
Jesus tells the story of the Samaritan and asks who was the neighbor in the story.
The man says, "the one who showed mercy"
Jesus says yeah. go do that.

Things to consider:
We found it interesting that in "Love the Lord your God with all your heart/soul(psuche)/strength/ and mind", the word for 'love' is "agapao" - the verb form of 'agape' - which seems to be a very intentional sort of love. Love that is based in the will as opposed to the spleen (where compassion comes from). Much of the Empire was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy which placed a great deal of importance on the mind or will and rationality/order/logos. The word for 'mind' is 'dianoia' which doesn't seem to be anything particularly new: thoughts, understanding, feeling.
So what would intentional love mean?

The first two men to walk past the injured men were a priest and a Levite. It's interesting to consider that both the priest and Levite had important religious duties to uphold, and since touching a dead body makes you unclean, they would have risked defiling themselves and therefore being unable to attend to any of their religious responsibilities that day. In their minds, they would've been totally justified. They can't allow themselves to be unclean, so there's just nothing that they can do about the injured man. The Samaritans were sort of a discriminated-against Jewish sect. They held different beliefs and to touch a Samaritan was also to render oneself unclean. So actually, if the injured man was Jewish, the Samaritan could have been defiling him by helping him.
Michael suggested that the Samaritan is kind of operating from a position of having nothing to lose, and this plus seeing what is most important gives him power to cross social categories. We considered this in light of the call to die to ourselves. What are we in a position to lose?

Also interesting was the idea that when people talk about someone being a 'Good Samaritan', they often mean that the person did something right. But actually, in the story, the priest and the Levite were the ones who did their duty in staying clean and the Samaritan is the one who broke the social rules to help the injured man. We tried to think of ways in which we think we are right and justified, but perhaps we're really just buying into what our social categories tell us about what is the right thing to do when Jesus would have us do something different.

Another thing is, the story is not about the Samaritan helping his neighbor the injured man. The story is about the Samaritan being a neighbor to the injured man. The teacher of the law describes him as 'the one who showed mercy'. Jesus says, 'go and do likewise.' So if we intentionally make ourselves a neighbor to everyone, then everyone is our neighbor by association.

So basically, what we have to think about is - what does it mean to go about living with an intentional love for God and for our neighbors? What does it mean to love them like we love ourselves (and one might ask, do we love ourselves?)? When can we be 'doing the right thing,' but not showing mercy? What does it mean to show mercy? What, exactly, is Jesus asking us to give here?

And man, how awkward would it be if you were an outcast that no one associated with, carrying an injured man who you shouldn't be touching, into the city where no one accepts you, to look for help? How badly would you have to want him to be safe in order to put yourself through that?

Man.

happy Thursday,

-Tracy