Sometimes
the lectionary readings baffle me. I was
going through the readings to prepare the Pastor’s Desk and it occurred to me
that in the first reading from Deuteronomy 30:10-14 they left out the
punchline. How frustrating is that? So, I am going to give you the missing
punchline. It isn’t funny; it is confronting.
And the punchline is: “I call heaven and earth today to
witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and
the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast
to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the
land which the LORD swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to
give to them” (DT 30:19-20).
There is a
strong connection between this reading from Deuteronomy and today’s gospel from
St Luke, the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25 – 37). When the young scholar in the gospel tried to
test Jesus with his question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus quickly responded with his own test
question, “What is written in the law?”
The scholar’s answer is called the Great Commandment found in
Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel! The
LORD is our God, the LORD alone!
Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your strength.” The second part of his answer comes from Leviticus
19: 18, “You must love your neighbor as yourself,” the second Great Commandment. Since the time of Moses to the present day
every Jewish person over the age of thirteen knows these two commandments. Jesus acknowledged the scholar’s correct
answer saying, ““You have answered correctly; do this and you will live” (Luke 10: 28).
But the
scholar was not satisfied. So, he pushed
Jesus by asking “And who is my neighbour?”
When Moses dictated the law as written in Leviticus and for
thousands of years thereafter, neighbor meant “fellow Jews.” Jesus’ parable must have been shocking to the
scholar and to those who heard it because he was redefining the law. For Jesus your neighbor could be anyone,
anywhere in any situation. By using a
Samaritan as the hero of the parable Jesus picked one of the most despised
groups of people of his day.
For us the challenge is the same as that of the
scholar. If we ask Jesus “What must I do
to inherit eternal life?” We probably
would receive the same answer. We know
what we need to do. We must choose
life. We must love God, obey his voice and
hold fast to him. In St John’s gospel
Jesus gave us a new commandment “love
one another. As I have loved you, so you
also should love one another. This is
how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for another”
(John 13:34-35).
