Neighborhoods (The 5:15)

Reaching the Neighborhoods, Nations and the Next Generation is the DNA of Grace, and in the next few weeks we will reconnect with what scripture has to say about these core areas. In this “part 2” teaching, we learn from Jesus in Luke chapter 10 about who our neighbors are and what it means to love them as ourselves.

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Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
August 11, 2013

Neighborhoods
Luke 10:23-37

We’re in an interesting little time here. We finished up The Journey Home, and now right at the beginning of the fall, the end of the summer, we have just a few weeks before we launch into Philippians in early September. As we were praying, we really felt like it would be good to revisit some of the key core passages, the key core identity markers of what makes Grace, Grace.

One of the things we talk about all the time here is making disciples of the next generation, in the neighborhoods, and among the nations. Tonight, we’re going to talk about neighbors and neighborhoods. Last week, we talked about the next generation. This week, we’ll talk about neighborhoods. Next week, nations. You kind of get the idea.

Luke 10 will be our launching-off point for this discussion. As we begin, here’s a question to think about…How do you see the world around you? Do you see it as an opportunity or do you see it as a threat? Do you see it as an adventure or do you see the world as coming at you too quickly? Do you see the world as just a whole lot of people who want something from you and are always trying to get it? Is the world around you just a beautiful place to live or is it a grind? How do you see the world?

This is so important because the way we see the world determines the way we act in the world. I’ll give you an example. When I was in college, I spent a summer in Costa Rica. I was writing for a little human rights magazine. It was a summer internship. One weekend, we went up to the jungle in the central part of the country, in the mountains.

One of the guys in the group (not me) decided it would be really cool to do a deep jungle tour at night. We had a guide. We go out, and I wasn’t very sure about this whole scenario because I knew about these rain forests full of poisonous spiders and deadly poisonous frogs and poisonous snakes. If the poisonous things don’t get you, maybe the carnivorous jaguars will. I’m just pretty jumpy at this point.

We embark on the tour, and we start walking into the deep jungle. Our guide was pretty confident. After about 30 or 40 feet, he said, “Shh, stop, stop, stop.” We all stop, and I’m scared. He goes, “Look.” I look up. It’s just a big stick dangling from the tree, and then all of a sudden it starts moving. It was this long! It was a stick bug. Have you seen those? It was literally two-feet long. It just started climbing along. If you see a two-foot insect, it’s disconcerting. You get a little scared of that. I was beginning to see this world as particularly threatening.

Well, we walked for another five or ten minutes, and all of sudden in the distance I started hearing this noise. I don’t think I’ll be able to recreate it, but it was like a deep, wheezing howl. But the jungle did not only give it to us once; it kept doing it, echoing and echoing and echoing. I had thought certainly it was jaguars sharpening their teeth. The guide is walking along pluckily, confidently, no worries at all. I come up next to him, and I’m kind of scared, and I say, “Are those jaguars?”

He goes, “No! No, those are howler monkeys.” I was like, “Oh, is that better, or do they want to eat me too?” I said, “Have you ever seen a jaguar?” He looked at me and he goes, “No, but I know they’ve seen me.” You can imagine how my night hike went. Huge insects. Poison. Jaguars. I didn’t enjoy the thing at all. Why? Because the way I saw that night jungle world was through the lens of fear and terror.

Our guide, on the other hand, knew how that world worked. He understood it, so as he walked, he could walk confidently and he could recognize the beauty even in the midst of maybe some danger. I don’t think it was that dangerous, but he could just see the beauty. Why? Because he had the lens.

Jesus talks about this in Matthew 6. He says, “The eye (the way you see the world) is the lamp of the body. If your eye is good, your whole body is full of life. But if your eye is bad, you’re full of darkness, and oh, how great is the darkness.” If you’re not able to see the world well, if your perspective doesn’t work, ah, then your life is going to be lived in darkness and fear and brokenness.

As we jump off here in Luke 10, Jesus is actually going to be talking about how we see the world, and he’s going to teach us some really, really important stuff. We’re just going to work our way through this passage bit by bit, verse by verse, and make some observations along the way, and then we’re going to try to apply it to where we’re living.

The disciples, the group of the 72, have been sent out at the beginning at chapter 10. They’ve announced the kingdom coming. They’ve found men of peace. They’ve talked about Jesus. They’ve returned back and they’ve told Jesus all the stories of how the kingdom of God, the rule and reign of God, has crashed into every place where they’ve gone. They’ve seen demons cast out. Jesus is saying, “Yes, this is wonderful! Satan is falling before the powerful reign of God.”

Then in verse 23, “Then turning to the disciples he said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.'” (Luke 10:23-24) Do you hear what Jesus is doing here? He’s inviting them not just into a view of him as Jesus, the One who’s fulfilling all the Old Testament promises; he’s actually inviting them in to being able to see the very way Jesus sees.

They’re not just coming and saying, “Oh wow, I finally get to see Jesus.” He’s saying, “No, come into my kingdom and learn how to see the world through the lens, through the view, of the kingdom of God.” The very next story takes this idea even deeper. Verse 25 says, “And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'” (Luke 10:25)

Now here when it says a lawyer, don’t think of courtroom drama. A lawyer in this sense is an expert in the Old Testament law. He makes his living, he devotes his life, to learning what the law says. When it says this lawyer puts Jesus to the test, that word (in Luke at least) test in Greek is a negative word. It’s the word that is used to describe what Satan did when he came to tempt or test Jesus in the wilderness.

This lawyer shows up, and he has some sort of ill intentions. He’s going to try to expose Jesus in some way. He’s maybe even going to try to undermine Jesus’ teaching. He asks this question about eternal life. What does it mean when he’s talking about eternal life? In his mind, in that day and age, that word eternal life did not necessarily mean just going to heaven when you die; it actually meant more, like entering the kingdom of God.

So this lawyer shows up and he says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? How do I enter the kingdom of God? How do I become a true part of God’s people starting now and then going forever?” That’s his question. Verse 26: “[Jesus] said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?'” (Luke 10:26)

Jesus answers back with a question. Sometimes this can be frustrating. God still does this. We bring all of our questions to God wanting answers. You sit down to pray, and you’re saying, “God, what do I do about this and what do I do about that? What about this?” It feels like when we’re done praying we actually don’t have any more answers than we started with. In fact, we feel like when we’re done praying we have more questions. Well, that’s sometimes how God works. He doesn’t answer all of our questions.

Sometimes, he presses us to dig more deeply into the Word. That’s what Jesus is doing here. He says, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” Jesus is saying, “How do you see the world? What’s your filter? How do you read the Law of God?”

Verse 27: “And [the lawyer] answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.'” (Luke 10:27) This was actually a somewhat common answer to this question, one of the most important commands in the Old Testament.

A number of rabbis during the time of Jesus (in addition to Jesus, because we know Jesus of course said this also) when they looked through the whole Old Testament law and said, “What do we really need to know?” it would be first the Shema, Deuteronomy, “Love the Lord your God with everything,” and then Leviticus 19, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” These two hang all the rest of the law and the Prophets.

If you think about that, it’s pretty high demand. I mean, all your mind? All your strength? All your soul? All your heart? Really? All of it? We mess this up all the time. How often do we go through the day and we barely love God with a portion of our heart or a portion of our mind. Then loving our neighbor as ourselves…well, that’s even harder. Really, to love your neighbor as yourself… I guess the problem is I love myself a lot, but to really love that person…

I was listening to a sermon, and a pastor was telling this story about teaching on this passage, loving your neighbor as yourself. After he had finished preaching the sermon on loving your neighbor as yourself, a girl came up to him from his congregation, and she was a beauty pageant girl. She competed in these Miss Teen sorts of things. She had just come back from a competition. She came up to the pastor and she said, “If what you are saying is true, then I should be just as happy for the girl who won the competition as I would’ve been for myself if I had won.”

The pastor said, “Yes, that’s exactly right.” She goes, “You have a pretty unreasonable God there, mister.” It’s kind of true. Can you imagine that? This is a tall demand, to love your neighbor as yourself, to celebrate the victories of others, to celebrate the triumphs of others. It’s a big command. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, all your strength, all your mind, your neighbor as yourself.

In verse 28, “[Jesus] said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.'” (Luke 10:28) Jesus affirms these two big commands…love God; love your neighbor. Jesus says, “Do those two and you will live.” Boom! Do these two and you will live. These are the two things that come back again and again as we read through the Gospels. This is what Jesus emphasizes…loving God and loving your neighbor.

Verse 29: “But [the lawyer], desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'” (Luke 10:29) Because that is the important question, isn’t it? Okay, I can love my neighbor as I love myself if my neighbor is equally as awesome as myself, my buddy, if my neighbor can help me out with all my homework, if my neighbor can get me a leg up in my job, if my neighbor will help me out with my social status. I could love my neighbor as I love myself if I could benefit from him or if I could just at least know how many neighbors I actually have to love.

It’s a good question. The word in Greek, neighbor, is pretty broad. It simply means someone nearby, a person nearby. But if you think back into the Old Testament when the Scripture in the Old Testament talks about neighbors, even in Leviticus 19, primarily it’s talking about loving people from the clan, the tribes of Israel, within the family. That’s what it’s talking about.

So here, this lawyer wants to know if Jesus is saying, “Okay, love your kinsmen, the people of God. Love the brethren like you love yourself.” Okay, maybe I could do that. Maybe I could love the people around me who are believers. But there’s something else interesting here because it says the lawyer is seeking to justify himself. That’s why he says, “Who is my neighbor?”

In this moment, we get a glimpse into the lawyer’s true motivation as he’s asking these questions. He’s seeking to justify himself. It means he’s seeking to appear righteous. He’s asking, “What do I have to do to appear righteous? What’s the minimum? Just how much loving of my neighbor am I going to have to do? What’s enough? What counts? At what point can I say, ‘Okay, fine, I’ve loved my neighbor enough,’ or, ‘I have loved enough neighbors’? What’s the minimum?”

Of course, this violates everything we know about the character of God and the way he calls us to relate to him. This kind of question, “What’s the minimum I have to fulfill in order to be justified, to appear righteous?” can you imagine how well that would work in your marriage?

Imagine Amy and I preparing for a Valentine’s meal (this big invented holiday), and I go up to Amy the week before and I say, “I’m thinking about making some plans for next week, Valentine’s, and I was just wondering, what’s the minimum we can spend on dinner for you to know I still love you? $30? No, $40? $45? $50? $80? Are you kidding me?” How awesome does that make you feel to think that in my mind I’m going, “Well, as long as I spend about $80 on dinner (which is a lot) then she’ll know I love her enough”?

Now what about the workplace? Sometimes we want to do this too in our jobs. What’s my job description? What’s expected of me? We want to just line it up so carefully. In some ways, that’s healthy. It’s good to know what your job is and what you need to fulfill in order to be successful at your job and to do what they’re paying you to do.

But how would your boss feel if he knew that the only reason you really wanted to be specific on your job description was so that you could do only the minimum of what he’s asking you to do? He’d feel like, “Wow, this is more about following the rules than it is really about working here.” This is more about trying to pay off your wife than really show her your love.

Do you understand what’s going on here? This is not a very gracious question. What we’re seeing in the lawyer is what really motivates him. “How do I do just the minimum to make sure I’m in, to appear righteous?” Jesus’ response is going to be very interesting. He’s going to go into one of the most famous passages of Scripture in the entire New Testament.

As he responds, Jesus is going to tell a story that says it’s not so much about the cost of the meal but the character of the one buying it for his wife. It’s not so much about the job description, but about the attitude of the one doing the job. It’s not so much about identifying who my neighbor is, but rather what kind of neighbor I am.

Verse 30: “Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.'” (Luke 10:30) This road from Jerusalem to Jericho we’ve actually driven on it on our EPIC trips. It goes down. It’s about an 18-20-mile road, but it drops about 3,500 feet in altitude going down to Jericho, which is right next to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth.

Jerusalem is up pretty high. You go down this. It’s barren. It’s rocky. It’s hot. There aren’t really many springs along the way. This is not a fun road to walk on. This is actually a very risky road to walk on. Because of so many of the rocky crags and the easy hiding places and the ambush locations, people knew you wouldn’t just really want to walk on this road all by yourself.

But in this story let’s just notice a couple of things about the victim. First, we see he fell among robbers. He’s robbed. It means he has no money. Whatever he was carrying with him, his iPhone, a little bit of cash, his car keys, all of it gone. Totally robbed. Then he’s also stripped. Now he’s robbed and naked.

It’s interesting because in the ancient world, particularly in the Gospel of Luke… If you read through Luke carefully, you’ll notice that for Luke clothing is a pretty important sign of status. Actually, one of the ways you can recognize where someone falls out in society in the Gospel of Luke, whether he’s a religious leader, a wealthy man, a political leader, something like that, is the clothing he wears. The same thing is true through Acts, which also Luke wrote.

Clothing is really important. It’s a way of recognizing who has status and who doesn’t. This man has no clothing, no indication whatsoever of what kind of status he has. They beat him, so he’s also wounded. It says they left him half dead. I mean, it looks like he was lying there like a corpse, naked and bleeding.

It’s interesting actually in the ancient world, they had this fear of the evil eye. They didn’t really understand the practice of medicine very well. One of the things they understood is that you could actually suck energy from someone else, and so people were really hesitant to be around sick people because they thought the sick people were going to give them the evil eye and somehow do some sorcery and suck the life out of them.

“My life is at 50 percent like this because I’m sick. Somebody with 100 percent comes in, and I’m going to do some spell that just sucks it away like that.” People typically in the ancient world would avoid one another because they didn’t understand medicine and everything like that. This man is wounded; so potentially a threat to your health.

Finally, he is just on a road. Remember the lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” and then Jesus begins telling a story about this guy, about this victim to answer that question. What is Jesus saying about neighbors? He’s saying neighbors, the people we are called to love as we love ourselves, include those who can never pay us back.

They include those who have no status to pump us up because we served them. They include those who are sick and broken and may even require the risk of our own health. Neighbors, actually, are not just limited to the people who live on your street or live in your dorm; neighbors could be anybody you come across on the road. That’s what Jesus is saying.

You can just see the lawyer going, “Oh man, this is a lot more intense than I wanted it to be. Really? Because I don’t want to touch that guy.” This parable is known through history as the parable of the good Samaritan, right? We have all these Samaritan hospitals, Samaritan’s Purse, and all these mercy ministries, Christian ministries that go out and help to serve the poor or to serve the broken because of what is taught in this parable.

But just as crucial as the role of the Samaritan is the role and the identity of the victim here. You see this victim, and this could very well be known as the parable of the bloody, naked guy. But nobody really wants to go to the bloody, naked hospital. Around Christmastime, it’s a wonderful family activity to pack up a shoebox and send it off for Samaritan’s Purse, but nobody wants to sit around and pack up bloody, naked guy purse shoeboxes. We’ve stuck with Good Samaritan, probably for good reason.

We cannot lose sight of this bloody, naked guy and how important he is to what Jesus is teaching us about our neighbor and who our neighbor includes. Jesus is breaking down any definition of neighbor that would exclude someone because they don’t have status or that would exclude someone because they don’t have money, that would exclude someone because they don’t have the right ethnicity, that would exclude someone because they’re just too risky.

Jesus rather says a neighbor is a person with need. That’s how you know. This guy lying half dead on the side of the road, naked and bleeding and penniless, he has real, authentic need. That’s your neighbor.

Jesus continues the story in verse 31. “Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.” (Luke 10:31) How does this priest see the world? Here’s what we know about priests from the Old Testament. Priests in the Old Testament serve in the temple. In the time of Jesus, they served still in the temple.

One of the most important things for a priest was to maintain his cleanliness…ceremonial, ritual cleanliness, the washing and everything else. We know from the Old Testament there are certain things that would make you unclean. For example, eating pork is forbidden in the Old Testament, particularly for priests. If they found out that a priest had eaten some pork or something unclean, he certainly would not have been allowed in the temple to do his job. So a lot is riding on this priest’s sense of cleanliness.

Now the priest is walking down the road and he sees up here on the right a corpse, it appears. In the Old Testament, the law commands you’re not supposed to touch a corpse because it makes you unclean. Furthermore, you can see that the corpse has been stripped and robbed, so maybe someone is using him as a decoy and is going to jump out and rob him.

As he’s walking, he says, “Whoa, I don’t want to deal with that.” He goes to the other side of the road and walks by. He saw him. It’s interesting. The word Jesus uses, he saw the man. How does the priest see the world? The priest sees the world as threatening. Potentially, people could rob him. Potentially, he could make himself unclean.

“Actually, that whole situation right there is a little too messy. I don’t want to get involved with that. It’s going to be a real drain. I might get robbed myself. I might lose my job. I might. I might. I might. I’m getting over on the other side of the road and walking past like I never saw it.”

The next person in the parable is a Levite. Verse 32 says, “So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.” (Luke 10:32) Now the Levites, if you remember your Old Testament, were not specifically priests. They were the ones responsible for serving and making sure everything was good to go in the temple in terms of the sacrificial stuff and the furniture around the temple.

They were basically like the custodians, but it was better. It was a good job they were doing. The honorable work of making the place function well. They were like the custodians of the temple. They had all these responsibilities. When you read through about the Levites, what you see about the Levites is they were essentially the people with a lot of responsibility.

“So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.” (Luke 10:32) Again, here’s the Levite. He sees the man. How does he see the world? “I have a lot of responsibilities. That right there looks like a pretty big, messy responsibility. I’m going to go over here on the other side. I don’t really have time in my busy schedule with all my responsibilities to deal with that need right there.”

See, the problem with these parables when you read them and you start letting them work on you is they really stick in your craw. They can be pretty convicting sometimes, because I have been the priest and I have been the Levite walking by need. I have gotten off of 85, come up the ramp, ready to turn right onto Pleasant Hill or Indian Trail or Beaver Ruin, and I’ve seen the person sitting there with the sign, with real need it appears, and I’ve actually lane-changed away from them because I don’t want to be so close at the red light that I need to make eye contact, and then they’re going to ask me for money, and it’s just going to be messy.

Verse 33: “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.” (Luke 10:33) It’s interesting the introduction of the Samaritan into this story because at that time (you guys are familiar), Samaritans were hated by the Jews. Jews hated the Samaritans; the Samaritans hated the Jews. Maybe a good, modern-day equivalent would be some of the ways we hear about the relationship between Palestinians and Jews.

The Jews want the Palestinians out. “You can have no nation.” The Palestinians want the Jews out. “You can have no nation.” They don’t like each other. In fact, it’s so bad at the time of Jesus that one of the big taunts they throw at Jesus in John 8:48 is they say, “You are a Samaritan and you have a demon!” It’s an insult. It’s like a racial epithet. They’re like, “You Samaritan!”

It’s funny because we’ve heard this parable so many times that Jesus has literally transformed the meaning of Samaritan. We hear it and we’re like, “Samaritan. Yeah, it’s a hospital. Oh, that’s a ministry. That’s a cool thing.” But actually in that time, it was a racial epithet. It was a harsh word to say. Jesus just drops it right into the middle of this story. “But a Samaritan…came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.” (Luke 10:33)

That’s the difference. The Samaritan sees with compassion. He sees the world and he sees with compassion. He recognizes the need and he feels the true, authentic prick of love, compassion, the touch of his heart of compassion.

Verse 34 says, “[The Samaritan] went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'” (Luke 10:34-35)

So here’s the Samaritan. He invested his resources, the oil and the wine. He took time out of his schedule to go by the wayside, bind this man up, carry him up to the inn. He gave money to the innkeeper to say, “Hey, take care of this guy.”

It’s interesting. Some people have wondered what perhaps would the early hearers of this parable thought of this Samaritan. What kind of guy was he? It’s actually likely that he was a merchant. That would explain why he has a beast of burden, why has oil and wine and a bit of money. Maybe even a relationship with the innkeeper. Maybe he passes this way many times. Maybe this is one of his trade routes. He walks back and from Samarian on this road many times.

It’s fascinating to see that the two religious leaders in Israel, the priest and the Levite, ignore the responsibility, the calling God has on their lives to lead and take care of the people. But it’s a businessman…not any kind of professional ministry clergy person; it’s a businessman, a merchant…who is the one who stops and shows real compassion. Just an everyday guy. He displays true sacrificial service here.

Now as we’re talking about this, sacrifice and mercy and caring for people with authentic need, if you’ve walked through downtown Atlanta for any period of time, you know people come up to you and they ask you for money. There are a lot of beggars. There’s a lot of need all around you. It’s difficult sometimes because you read this passage and you’re like, “Okay, well, I’m supposed to be a neighbor. I’m supposed to show mercy, and this guy poured in oil and wine. I don’t have any oil and wine but I do have $5.”

When we’re giving, the Scripture is clear also, it’s important as we are showing our mercy that we show it wisely. Sometimes you’re walking through the city and people come up and they ask for money, and it’s a good thing to process with the Holy Spirit. “God, is this a place to give or not?” because the truth is, you don’t really know this person’s story. Sometimes they’re telling you a story, “Man, all I need is $17 so I can get on a Greyhound and see my kids in Louisiana.” I’ve heard that story a lot of times. Is that person telling the truth?

Or if I give him $17, is he just going to go and buy whiskey, because he’s a total alcoholic, in which case is it better for me to fund his addiction or not? Well, it gets kind of complicated. How do we process through all of this? Well, we really need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think the point of this parable is that we simply just throw money at every need we see.

Actually, I think one of the points of this parable Jesus is teaching is saying, “How do you recognize true need?” and then, “How do you respond to the compassion God gives you in your heart as you’re coming across?” Often it will be sacrificial, but the way we do it should also be strategic…the way we give.

Come down to verse 36. Jesus turns the tables now after telling the parable. He turns the tables back on the lawyer. He says, “‘Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise.'” (Luke 10:36-37)

It’s interesting the lawyer can’t even say, “The Samaritan.” It’s too uncouth, too difficult for him to even imagine that the Samaritan, the one who is despised, the one he expected to be the worst of the worst in this story is the one who clearly was the better neighbor.

We have this interesting switch that happens through the course of the story. It begins when the lawyer says, “Who is my neighbor?” and then Jesus at the end says, “Who proved to be a neighbor?” Jesus here is taking this lawyer who is trying to figure out, “What’s enough to satisfy righteousness, the Law of God, the people around me? What’s enough?” He says, “Don’t ask, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ Ask, ‘What kind of neighbor am I?’ or ‘To whom am I a neighbor?'”

Don’t ask, “What kind of person are they?” Ask, “What kind of person are you?” This parable messes with me because I’ve been reflecting on it all week and I don’t know if I’m a very good neighbor. Maybe I am, but as I really search my heart and this thing is filtering through me, it’s challenging.

What about us where we live? Where’s the need? Do we know? Are we able to recognize the need around us? I want to show you guys just a couple of stats with this story in mind and the question, “How do you see the world?” Like a Levite? Like a priest? Like a Samaritan from the parable? How do you see the world?

Here are a few stats from the last 10 years or so around Gwinnett County. You guys remember those towers. They tore them down a few years ago, unfortunately. They’d been there for 40 years, and you just wonder, “Did success move out? Is Gwinnett just pretty good now?” Here’s the thing. The county where we live increased to 805,000 between 2000 and 2010. That’s a massive county.

Now during that same time, per capita income has fallen by $7,000. So imagine that’s a family of two, that’s by $14,000 and so on. Eighteen percent of the children in Gwinnett live in poverty. It’s also a rapidly diversifying area. Currently 32 percent of Gwinnett households speak a language other than English. So one-third of our neighbors are not speaking English at home.

Sixty-one percent of the students in the county school system are non-white: 28 percent are African American, 10 percent are Asian, 25 percent Hispanic, 4 percent multiracial, 0.4 percent Native American. The graduation rates for non-whites from 2000 to 2010 grew from 50 percent to 70 percent. The median income in the county from 2007 to 2011 is $63,000 per household.

Twenty-five percent of Gwinnett commuters spend at least 45 minutes in the car daily. Yeah, that’s probably true…at least 45 minutes. Now this is interesting. Eighty-seven percent of Atlanta’s poor live in the suburbs. It’s not always what you expect, but they’re actually scattered all throughout the metro area, and a huge number of them live here in Gwinnett.

The city of Atlanta’s social services in the city get grants for $65.98 per poor person. Here, the social services in the suburbs, is a $1.73 per poor person in grants. Just a couple more. Atlanta suburban poor are more likely to be native born than immigrants. Finally, between 2000 and 2008, violent crime in the suburbs rose 23 percent, but in the city of Atlanta, it fell by 49 percent.

These are interesting. Sometimes they turn our expectations or maybe our common perceptions of the suburbs on their head. Maybe what you thought the suburbs were like isn’t actually what they’re like. Perhaps there’s far more need among our neighbors than we’re willing to recognize.

This last week, a family on our street was busted for theft. The police came and we watched as they got a search warrant for the house and they went into the house and they started pulling out various stolen goods…motorcycle, wheels, Coke machine, a whole lot of stuff, just all out on the driveway.

It was interesting. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a big bust like that in your neighborhood, but everyone in the neighborhood wants to watch but also they don’t want to get caught watching. All of our neighbors checked their mail like nine times during the bust. They’re like, “I wonder if the mailman came again? No, he didn’t? Okay, well, maybe they’ll send me some Super Savers later or something.” People just kept walking. I cleaned the garage with the garage door open so I could listen, because you’re curious to know what’s going on.

It ended up being a pretty tragic story. We had an idea that the house was a bit troubled, but the truth was we didn’t know the extent until that day when everything that was going on inside that house ended up on the driveway. I remember one of our other neighbors called and they were asking us, because we had a pretty good view of it, what was going on and what we understood.

About halfway through the conversation, our neighbor said, “Man, they are so messed up!” I thought about it, and I said, “Yeah, they’re pretty broken, but the truth is probably they are a lot of families in the houses on this street who have just as much brokenness. Unfortunately, this family has to show it to the whole world on their driveway.” When you think about the houses on our street, every family has junk. Every family has need. Every family has real brokenness.

You think about our county and our neighbors, the people around us. They’re not people with status. They’re not necessarily people with money. They’re from different ethnicities, and yet here in this parable, Jesus is calling us to be the kind of neighbors who really love and embrace those who live around us.

There are two last things we need to think about as we close, because really we’re talking about, “How do we see with compassion?” and, “How do we serve with compassion?” That’s the model the Samaritan shows. If you’re taking notes, those are your blanks…seeing, serving with compassion.

But as far back as the first or second century, Augustine really loved this interpretation. It was an important one. When the early church read this parable, they saw Jesus like the Samaritan and they saw the broken people in the world who need Jesus like that victim who was robbed and stripped and bleeding. When Augustine read this parable and taught on this parable, he talked about how Jesus, like the Samaritan, comes to us like the victim broken and with no hope.

Jesus, like the Samaritan, pours in, gives of his time, gives of his resources, humbles himself. Augustine even went so far to say that the inn is like the church. Jesus comes and finds us broken in our lost condition and introduces us to a safe haven. There is a sense in which this whole parable and really learning to love our neighbors well will never work for us until we realize how God has come in Jesus, found us broken, wandering, beaten, sometimes bloody, victim of the world around us, victim of our own poor decisions, penniless, have nothing to offer, that God comes to us just like that victim and he heals us, and he gives us a life again.

Till we recognize that each and every one of us who are in God’s kingdom at one point were just as broken as that victim, the bloody, naked guy, it’s going to be very difficult to love our neighbors. But when we see in our neighbors, the people up the street, the people we come across on the road, when we see them and we realize, “Wow, there’s a real need there, and God came to me when I had a real need and he healed me, put me back together,” suddenly, there’s a source of grace, a source of love, God’s love poured out in us we can tap into to pour out into others.

But then there’s one other way to read this passage, and it’s maybe worth thinking about. What if we see Jesus in the victim? Because remember Jesus too was literally surrounded by a mob. Jesus also was stripped, beaten, and abandoned. They gambled for his clothes. They killed him. Jesus also in that broken down, bleeding state was mocked and avoided by the religious leaders of Israel, wasn’t he? Just like the Levite and the priest walked away, so was Jesus.

Maybe as Jesus is telling this parable, he’s not just giving us an ethical call to love our neighbors, although he is doing that, and he’s not just reminding us that we all need the love of a Savior, but perhaps he’s also saying that the way we respond to that broken person on the side of the road reflects the way we respond to Jesus himself, and the way we embrace and see and pour out love in the face of need is the way we actually respond to Jesus, the crucified Messiah.

You say, “Well, if Jesus was broken down on the side of the road, of course I’d stop and help him out.” Would you? “If Jesus was homeless, well yeah, he could sleep on my couch.” Really? Are we comfortable with the fact that our Savior actually humbled himself so far that he laid down his life? He was broken and vulnerable and naked just like this guy in the parable. Are we okay with that?

We love the triumphant, Easter-risen Lord, but sometimes we’re not as comfortable with the idea of Jesus making himself so vulnerable, and yet in Matthew 25 (it’s an important passage), Jesus, speaking about the final judgment (you guys know this), he’s talking about those who the Father has blessed when the Son of Man is sitting on his throne. He will inherit the kingdom.

Jesus says, “Here’s what happens at that judgment, those who inherit the kingdom, among the sheep and not the goats. Here’s how I know. When I was hungry, they gave me food. When I was thirsty, they gave me drink. When I was a stranger, a foreigner, they welcomed me. When I was naked, they clothed me. When I was sick, they visited me. When I was in prison, they came to me.” The people in that day will say, “When did we do that?” Jesus said, “Whenever you did this for the least of my brethren, you did it for me.”

When we read this parable, there’s a sense in which we need to recognize that the bloody, naked guy lying on the side of the road represents Jesus himself, and our response to the need we perceive in our community, in our lives, really reflects the way we see Jesus. Are we willing to follow Jesus into the way of sacrificial, true neighbor love? How do you see the world? Let’s pray.

God, we love you and we bless you. First, we want to thank you that when we were broken down, you came to us, you healed us, and you gave us a life. You were a neighbor to us first. Lord, some of us might feel like we’re in that spot…broken, beaten, robbed with nothing to offer.

Lord, I pray for those of us in that place that you would speak to our hearts right now and say, “I’ll come alongside you. I will pour in oil and wine. I will carry you. I will find a place for you. I will make provision for you.” Come, speak that by your Holy Spirit into the broken hearts who are even here tonight.

Then Lord, some of us are convicted because we’ve been like the Levite and we’ve been like the priest. As we’ve seen in this Scripture, those kinds of responses, it’s not just rejecting the need around us, it’s kind of like rejecting you. So Lord, draw us back graciously. Give us real compassion when we see the world, authentic vision, the ability to discern true need and how we can serve and invest our lives sacrificially for the sake of those around us.

Lord, I pray you would awaken that deep gut love in our hearts to deeper levels so we could show your love to the world in an amazing powerful way. Lord, help us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In Jesus’ name, amen.