Love your neighbour as thyself

There are questions we ask because we genuinely want to know the answer, and then there are questions we ask because we hope the answer will be a little more convenient than we imagine. In today’s Gospel, a lawyer approaches Jesus and asks Him, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It sounds like a very good question. But Luke tells us that this man was not simply looking for an answer: he wanted to test Jesus. And Jesus turns the question back to him: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The man knows the answer: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But then comes the question that reveals what is truly in his heart: “And who is my neighbor?” It sounds like a request for clarification, but perhaps what he is really looking for is a limit. “Who exactly do I have to love? Where does my responsibility end?” And, if we are honest, this is a question we understand very well. Maybe we do not say it out loud, but we express it in other ways: “Do I really have to forgive that person after what they did to me? Do I really have to help someone who would never do the same for me? Do I really have to be patient with someone who makes my life difficult?” We are very good at loving when loving is easy. The problem comes when love costs us something.

Jesus then tells the story of a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He is attacked by robbers, beaten, stripped, and left half dead on the side of the road. A priest passes by, sees him, and continues walking. A Levite passes by, sees him, and does the same. Then a Samaritan arrives. For those listening to Jesus, this would have been surprising, because there was deep hostility between Jews and Samaritans. Yet it is precisely the Samaritan who stops. He sees the man, has compassion on him, treats his wounds, takes him to an inn, and pays for him to continue receiving care. At the end, Jesus asks, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” And the lawyer answers, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus then says to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

At first glance, this seems simply to be a lesson about being good and helping others. But the more seriously we listen to Jesus’ words, the more uncomfortable they become. Because Jesus does not allow us to choose who deserves our love. He does not say, “Love the people you like, those who respect you, and those who agree with you.” He places a person in need before us and says, “Be a neighbor.”

And here we need to be honest with ourselves. How many times do we see someone in need and simply continue walking? Perhaps not literally, but we can do it in many other ways. We can avoid someone because we do not want an uncomfortable conversation. We can refuse to forgive because we would rather hold on to our anger. We can see someone suffering and think, “That is not my problem.” We can be patient with the people we love and immediately lose our patience with everyone else. And we can even do all of this while continuing to consider ourselves good Christians.

The problem is not that we do not know what God asks of us. We know. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The problem is that our hearts do not always want to do it. Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians, helps us understand why our hope cannot be founded on our ability to perfectly keep what God commands. The promise made to Abraham comes before the Law. The inheritance does not come from our performance, but from God’s promise. The Law reveals God’s will and exposes our sin, but it cannot transform a sinner into a righteous person before God.

And this is important, because we can easily turn our faith into a kind of checklist: pray more, read the Bible more, be more generous, serve more, be more patient, sin less. All of these things are good, but none of them can erase our sin. We cannot stand before God and say, “Look at everything I have done; therefore I am worthy to be saved.”

So what do we do? We look again at that man lying on the side of the road. He is wounded. He cannot save himself. He cannot repay the Samaritan. He cannot even get up and walk. He can only receive the mercy of someone who comes toward him. And this is where the story leads us to Christ. Because we are exactly like that man before God. We cannot make ourselves righteous. We cannot erase what we have done, nor recover what we have lost. We cannot do enough good works to make up for our sins. But Christ comes to us.

He does not wait for us to become worthy of His love. He comes precisely because we are sinners. He enters our wounded world, takes our flesh upon Himself, and goes to the cross bearing our sins. The One who perfectly loved God and His neighbor gives His life for those who have not loved either God or their neighbor as they should have.

Think about it: the One who tells us to love our neighbor is the same One who loved His enemies. When they insulted Him, He did not respond with hatred. When they crucified Him, He prayed for them. And He did this for us. Not because we had earned it, but because He is merciful.

This is the promise Paul speaks about. Our salvation does not depend on how good we are, but on God’s faithfulness to His promise. In Jesus Christ, God has kept that promise. Christ died for sinners. Christ rose for sinners. And therefore, when we come before God, we do not have to pretend to be better than we are. We can come as sinners and simply say, “Lord, have mercy.”

And He has mercy. Your sins are forgiven. Your salvation does not depend on how perfectly you have loved your neighbor, but on Christ’s perfect love for you. And this changes the way we hear Jesus’ final words: “Go and do likewise.” It does not mean, “Do enough good works and then God will give you eternal life.” Eternal life is not a prize that we earn. It is a gift that we receive from God through Christ. Now we can love our neighbor not in order to gain something from God, but because we have already received His mercy.

Therefore, we can look differently at the people God places before us. The difficult coworker is our neighbor. The person who hurt us is our neighbor. The person who disagrees with us is our neighbor. The person who needs our time when we are tired is our neighbor. And sometimes our neighbor is the very person sitting beside us every Sunday.

Perhaps there is someone you are avoiding. Perhaps there is someone you have not forgiven. Perhaps there is someone you have judged too quickly. Jesus does not ask us to solve all the problems of the world. He asks us to see the people He places before us and to have mercy. Sometimes this means doing something concrete. At other times it simply means stopping to listen. It means forgiving. It means being patient. It means helping when it would be easier to walk past.

And certainly, we will fail. There will be times when we are like the priest or the Levite and walk past. When that happens, let us not despair or try to compensate for our failure with more works. Let us return to Christ. Let us confess our sin and receive His forgiveness once again. Then we get up and continue walking.

Not trying to earn God’s love, but living because we have already received it. This is the freedom Christ gives us. You do not have to spend your life trying to prove to God that you are worthy of His love. Christ has already demonstrated His love for you on the cross. You are free to stop. You are free to listen. You are free to forgive. You are free to love.

And when you fail, Christ is still there, and His mercy is greater than your failure. So do not keep asking yourself, “Who is my neighbor?” Look around you. There is your neighbor. There is the person who needs patience. There is the person who needs forgiveness. There is the person who needs encouragement. There is the person who needs help. And above all, remember this: your hope is not found in how much good you are able to do, but in Jesus Christ, who came to you when you could not save yourself. He had mercy on you. He forgave you. He gave you life. And now, having received this mercy, go and show mercy.

Amen.