Click here to listen to this past Sunday’s sermon. The title of the sermon was “The Wrong Question” and the Scripture Reading was Luke 10:25-37. I tried to remind myself and all who were present of how radical this story is. Though we all think we know all about the story of the good Samaritan, this story reminds us that we are called not just to love those whom we know and love. Rather, we are called to a way of life that isn’t interested in restricting our sphere of responsibility. If the wrong question is “Who is my neighbor” or “Who do I have to help?,” a much better question is “How can I help” when we are confronted with need. This is the radical love that Christian discipleship calls us to and frees us for.
The Wrong Question
19 Thursday Jul 2007
Posted in Uncategorized
Kevin M. Watson 
I am currently reading “Jesus the Jewish Theologian” by Brad H. Young. I just finished reading chapter 15 that covered the parable of the Good Samaritan and thought I should check my reader for updated blogs. The serendipity of reading your post causes me to reply.
Young points out that the characters in the parable are all similar in that they don’t hold to the oral law. (Priest, Levite, Samaritan) He says that the audience would have anticipated a Pharisee to be the hero of the story rather than a Samaritan since they did hold to the oral law which stated that a person must bury an abandoned corpse or that any law may be broken in order to save life. But by using the Samaritan as the hero a person listening to this parable would identify with the injured man left for dead and realize that the one acting as a neighbor is actually an enemy. So the answer to the question is also “my enemy is my neighbor”.
Rusty – Thank you very much for your response. You point to the key part of this story which makes it so radical – my enemy is my neighbor. Thank you for explicitly lifting that up. I pray that I am able to more effectively practice this in my own life! Thanks again for contributing.
Kevin – Thanks for your sermon. Indeed, may it be so. I was impressed at your challenge and invitation for people to tune out if they were not interested in really living in love of God and neighbor. Thank you for the good word and the convicting message about actually living out our faith.
PS – You might think about updating your “About Me” page…
Andrew – Thanks for your encouraging words. I appreciate the feedback, and it is nice to know that someone is listening!
And thanks for the suggestion to update my “About Me” page. I took your advice! Check it out…
Any other thoughts about what I can do to spruce up deeply committed?
Kevin – No problem. Great about me page, I like your responses to Who am I?
Do visitors to Deeply Committed really care how many hits your site has received? I realize that I am guilty of this too with Thoughts of Resurrection and the Feedburner tag, although I think I may take it down.
Also, I wonder if using multiple categories might make sense. Do you think this provides benefit to the reader?
Andrew – Thanks for the free “blog consulting!”
I took down the hits stat, I think I just put it up there when I realized it was an optional widget, but I am not sure it does serve any purpose.
I think the categories suggestion is a good idea. I will work on that. Thanks for the input.