For Our Neighbors: Religious Failure



"And who is my neighbor?"  That's the question an expert in the law asked Jesus in response to Jesus telling him that the way to inherit eternal life was to love God with all he was and to love his neighbor as himself. (Luke 10:25ff).  He was a lawyer looking for a loophole!  

Jesus responded to this question by telling one of his greatest parables.  A man did something stupid.  He traveled down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and got ambushed by robbers.  They stripped and beat him, leaving him by the road half dead.  

It was a road, so people passed by.  The first to pass by was a priest.  He was at the apex of the Jewish religious hierarchy.  He knew all God's laws and was supposed to be an example of following it.  Yet he passed by on the other side.  Went out of his way to avoid the man!

Why?  Maybe he thought he was dead, and touching him would leave him ceremonially unclean, making him unable to do his priestly work in the temple.  Maybe be was too busy to stop.  He had holy things to do!  For whatever reasons, his religious faith excluded the beaten man from his list of neighbors. 

The next person to come by was a Levite. He was a notch below the priest in the hierarchy.  He too passed by on the other side!  Religious failure again!

We find this behavior shocking.  Yet we evangelicals are often guilty of the same thing.  We fail to be a neighbor because of legalism and because we  redefine or twist the scriptures to suit us.  

Legalism causes religious failure.  That person isn't my neighbor because he's a liberal.  This person isn't my neighbor because she's an undocumented worker.  Yet another person isn't my neighbor because he's gay.

We also twist the scriptures to suit us.  We think our only mission to minister to spiritual needs.  Yet Jesus said God will judge us on what we do for the poor (Matthew 25:46ff).  We don't choose between preaching the gospel and helping the poor.  Jesus didn't give us a choice!  He commanded us to do both.

Have a healthy faith that leads you to see everyone as your neighbor!

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