Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost; Octoechos Tone 8; đź•‚ The Holy and All-Praiseworthy Apostle Andrew the First-Called.
Polyeleos Feast. Nativity Fast. Resurrection Gospel 3.
Ephesians 4:1-6; 1 Corinthians 4:9-16; Luke 10:25-37; John 1:35-51.
Read Luke 10:25-37
Why didn’t the lawyer quit while he was ahead? He passed his PHD-level theological exam with Jesus! Not in good faith, he was doing something different than Jesus was with the conversation. His follow-up question, “And who is my neighbor,” could be an excellent question. A person could claim to be fulfilling internally the part of his answer about loving God (that’s why Jesus had to point out that, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”), but the matter of loving one’s neighbor is external, objective, and observable by and accountable to others. In a complicated world a little more understanding might help, except that he had just demonstrated the ability to already know his answer from the law himself if he had wanted to. Luke makes it clear that, rather than seeking an answer from Jesus that he could go away with to reflect on in humility and put into practice, he had asked his original question with adversarial intent and, having hit a dead-end, was only asking his follow-up question to justify starting down this path in the first place.
Jesus graciously went the extra mile with the lawyer. Whether the man realized it or not, Jesus did in conversation with him what the Good Samaritan did for the Jew in the parable. The “neighbor” in the parable isn’t the wounded, half-dead Jew who fell among thieves. The neighbor is the hated Samaritan – “He who showed mercy on him.” In answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor,” Jesus says, “Go and do likewise,” meaning be like your enemy loving you.
To love your neighbor as yourself, you act like someone who experiences you as their enemy yet shows mercy to you anyway. Just like Jesus did to this lawyer by telling him this parable.