https://assets-cdn2.dropwave.io/086174f0-efbe-400f-a3e9-b91549a26ab7/media/Trinity 13 AD 2026.mp3

https://app.dropwave.io/show/our-savior-lynchburg/trinity-13-ad-2026

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan — what’s it about? What’s the point? Some say it’s about you being the Good Samaritan. This reading sees this parable as only the demand to show love to your neighbor. But the primary meaning of this text is that Jesus Himself is the Samaritan, the One who showed mercy on you (Luke 10:37). He came to you when you were lying dead in your trespasses and sins, and He raised you up, brought you to the inn that is His holy Christian Church, and promised to pay all your debts. The parable exposes our failure to love and directs us to Christ’s mercy. Then, having received that mercy, we are equipped and sent to show mercy to our neighbors.

But there’s a second way this text is misused. This other misreading say that because the one who showed mercy was a foreigner, therefore every person in the whole entire world is your neighbor. It says that you owe the full expression of your love to 8 billion plus people. In today’s sermon, I want to focus especially on that second misreading, why it’s wrong, and how we ought to understand this parable rightly.

Neighbors and un-neighboring

“Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). The Lawyer at the beginning of this text is putting Jesus to the test. He’s forgotten who his neighbor is because he thinks he doesn’t have any. No neighbors to love. No neighbors to forgive.

Who is your neighbor? What is a neighbor? Do you have any neighbors?

“Neighbor” literally means a person who is near you. This means that every person in the parable was — at least for a few moments — a neighbor (a near person) to the man in the ditch. All but one were bad neighbors. The thieves were bad neighbors. They “stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead” (Luke 10:30).

How often are we bad neighbors in this way? How often do we deliberately and horribly mistreat those entrusted to us? How often do we defend our actions of wicked hatred and undue violence?

Priest and Levite were bad neighbors, too. Their route led to a neighbor in need. Experts in the Law, they knew Leviticus 19:18 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

These men rightly saw that the call to love their neighbor would be costly. Showing mercy would take time. They would be late for work. They would get dirty. Even more than dirt and blood-stains, they would become ritually unclean. They wouldn’t be able to do their Temple jobs. Perhaps they feared ritual impurity, inconvenience, or danger. Whatever their reasoning, they used the situation to avoid mercy.

They didn’t have time for this man in the ditch. So they “un-neighbored” themselves. Seeing they were getting awfully close to this man, they were at risk of being neighbors. So they crossed by on the other side. Avoided being near him. Continuing on their business, putting themselves far from the man in need. ‘If a neighbor is the person near me, then he can’t be my neighbor — he’s waaaay on the other side of the highway! And if he’s not my neighbor, then I don’t have to love him. I’m free from the law!

To see a man dying in the ditch and drive on past is not mercy. To see a man in his sins — a man ignorant of true goodness and of what God demands and expects — is not merciful or kind. It is selfish in the worst way.

What about us? How often do we choose to un-neighbor ourselves? How often do you avoid showing mercy because it doesn’t seem worthwhile?

Why was it that road that the priest and the Levite came down? Why the one that had a beat-up man lying in the ditch? Because God had ordered their steps to bring them near this man in need. They didn’t like that neighbor. They preferred the neighbors on the other side of the road. They preferred the neighbors they could serve far away in Jerusalem. This, too, is often like us. We act like the neighbors that God had set right into our path aren’t the right ones. We can choose better neighbors, better ways of showing mercy.

Yet Saint Paul writes to Pastor Timothy: If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8). Whom do you argue with and mistreat more — your family or your friends? those closest to you, or those furthest away?

We see this with the man who is gentle and kind to the people outside his home, but simultaneously harsh and impatient with his own family. He has patience for everyone except the people for whom God has given him the greatest responsibility. He feels irritated and bothered by the nearest neighbors God has given. It’s when a woman’s affections become turned away from the home. She’s interested in teaching other people’s children, while ignoring her own.

Interactions with more distant neighbors can look like love, but our love becomes distant and ‘telescoped.’ The priority gets flipped. Affection is first shown to those farther away, while those who are closest get what’s left over.