07102022 – Luke 10. 25-37
A little bit of a different take…on this one:
This strikes me as being all very academic.
After all, we are dealing with an uppity-snootie-academician.
It’s like he and Jesus are playing a game of “cat and mouse.”
The legal expert trying “to get one-up on Jesus” and discredit him “publicly.” Taking the rabbi, down a notch, as it were!
It also reminds me very much of the games that the Pharisees would continuously play with Jesus.
Entrapment, sifting over his words, and their meanings, engaging in a type of oral banter or debate.
The whole scenario begins…
With this “highbrow professor of the Torah” asking Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
As an academician, as a scholar in Israel…
As one who studied and studies the ancient scriptures, he should know the answer to his own question, even before he asks it.
He asks it anyways. Probably on purpose. Although his intention is unclear.
So apparently, his reason for asking Jesus is to find out “his take” on the question…
How will this “rather-low-brow-rabbi-from Galilee respond?”
It is almost humorous, when Jesus fails to answer his question…
But instead, in true rabbinical form – Jesys fires back with “another question.”
WHAT IS WRITTEN IN THE LAW.
You are the scholar.
You are the educated one. All your scrolls, what do they tell you? It is a fair question…What do you read there?
And the guy responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6.5 and Leviticus 19.18.
Good answer, Good answer, Jesus says, like a contestant on the family feud.
Jesus gives the guy an A+ and says, “Do this, and you will live.” That should have been the end of the story.
But no.
The guy wants to “justify himself” – going for extra credit, wanting to solidify his status as a learned scholar committed to education. So he asks…”And who is my neighbor?
Which prompts Jesus to tell another one of his parables, one of the stories for which he is so well known.
The whole encounter, I tell you, is all very academic.
There’s this guy who’s traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when random thieves suddenly attack him. They strip him of all of his clothes, beat the heck out of him, steal what they can, and abandon him half dead on the roadway.
A priest was traveling that same road and when he came upon him, he passed over to the other side of the road.
Next a Jew from the tribe of Levi does the very same thing.
Finally, a Samaritan arrives on the scene by that same route and when he sees the poor guy, he was moved to compassion.
Jesus’ whole point here – seems – that he is attempting to “SCHOOL” the high-brow professor and teach him a thing or two, as well as, the disciples, and anyone else standing in hearing distance.
That’s when Jesus does it.
He creates, he makes, the first ever multiple choice test, right there on that very spot.
You remember multiple choice tests.
Multiple-choice tests usually consist of a question or statement to which you respond by selecting “the best answer” from among “a number of choices.”
Multiple-choice tests typically test WHAT YOU KNOW, whether or not you UNDERSTAND ( or COMPREHEND), and your ability to APPLY what you have learned ( the APPLICATION).
So Jesus pops the first multiple choice test on the guy…
Which of the three?
- Priest
- Levite
- Samaritan plays the part of neighbor?
And before you ask, NO, there is no d) none of the above answer…nor is there an e) all of the above answer.
The correct answer is obvious, or should be, even to this academician.
It is the one who acts with integrity, pity, and the one who shows mercy.
And Jesus said, to him, “Go, and do likewise!) not in any kind of dismissive way…
But in a way where the guy knew, and understood, he had just been schooled, and schooled well!
And then Jesus said, maybe that was too easy, next time, I’ll make it TRUE or FALSE.
Amen.