5 April

The lawyer gives the correct answer: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ (v.27). This should be your highest priority. Your next priority is to love your neighbour as yourself.

Jesus then asks another question which shows that the lawyer is looking for a loophole (v.29). He wants to make ‘neighbour’ a term of limited liability – family, friends, relatives, members of the same people and religious community.

The religious leaders came along. First, the priest (who had probably just been running the services in the temple in Jerusalem) and then the Levite (the assistant responsible for the liturgy and music). Both ‘saw’ the victim (vv.31–32) but neither of them stopped. There are at least three possible reasons why they, and we, don’t get involved:

• We are too busy
  Possibly they were in a hurry. They didn’t want to get involved in a time-consuming activity.
• We don’t want to pollute ourselves
  Touching a dead body would have made them unclean for seven days (Numbers 19:11). They would not have been able to enter the temple during this period (Leviticus 21:1). They might have lost their turn of duty at the temple.
• We don’t want to take a risk
  Obviously there were robbers around. This could have been a decoy for a possible ambush.

The Samaritans were a race despised by Jews socially, politically and religiously. This is a story about a person of a different race and religion having compassion (Luke 10:33). The Samaritan provided practical help. It cost him time, energy and money (vv.34–35).

The story Jesus told shows that the lawyer asked the wrong question (v.29). The right question is not, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ but, ‘To whom can I be a neighbour?’Jesus teaches the absolute and unlimited nature of the duty of love. Jesus came to destroy all the barriers. The whole human race is our neighbour.

Martha was too busy to take time to enjoy her friendship with Jesus when he came to her home. Not spending time with Jesus is the biggest mistake you can make in your spiritual life. Nobody on their death bed ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time at the office.’ Many regret not spending more time on their most important relationships.

41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[d] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Father, help me to stay close to you, to live in your presence, sitting at the feet of Jesus, hearing your words and going out and acting on them.