This one is a little longer than usual, but I was really happy with it. It’s the narration for an upcoming presentation I am working on. I presented it as a speech at Toastmasters last night and it went pretty well. I’d be curious about your thoughts.
Love Stops
Love stops… I know what you might be thinking. How pessimistic. No, Dave, love continues on and on. Love never fails. Love never dies. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. You might even be tempted to tell me that the eternal God is love. And in all those things you would be right, but that’s not where I am going. Love stops and I can prove it.
A couple thousand years ago, Jesus was teaching and someone asked him a question. But it wasn’t an innocent question. The question was being asked of Jesus, not by a seeker of knowledge but by a teacher of Hebrew law. He was asking the question to put Jesus to the test, to cause him trouble, to get Jesus to say something that could be used against him. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus knew what was going on so he answered a question with a question. “You’re a teacher of the law, what does the law say? How do you read it?” The guy answered with one of the most famous passages of scripture from the Old Testament. 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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ What a great answer, right? How much better would our society be if rather than looking for all the things that divide us, we would live out our faith and love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves? It would fix our world. If we all lived by that code, it would change everything. It’s the essence of God’s will, a world of boundless, unstopping and unstoppable love. It’s a good answer and Jesus commended him for it. “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
But remember this is not an innocent question, it’s a test, so the teacher of the law pressed it further with another question. “And who is my neighbor?” What he’s really asking is who do I have to love and who can I get away with not loving? More concisely, he want to know where love stops. This conversation launched Jesus into one of the most famous stories of all time. A story that has extended far beyond Christendom and into the lore of virtually all of society. The story of the Good Samaritan.
A man goes on a journey and he gets mugged. Robbed, beaten and left for dead. He’s lying by the side of the road and barely clinging to life. He needs help. Now please remember, the story of the Good Samaritan is not a true story. It’s a parable, an illustration, a simple story Jesus used to illustrate a greater point. He wants to teach this teacher of the law not just who his neighbor is but what it really means to love your neighbor. This is why Jesus picked the characters he did. The first person to come along and see the injured man is a priest, a religious leader, someone the teacher of the law would have admired. Jesus makes a point of saying he saw the man in need and walked on by, crossing to the other side of the road. Next a Levite, a worker in the temple, another person who the teacher of the law would have held in high regard did the same. Then along comes the Samaritan.
Now to really get this, what you need to understand is the Samaritans and the Jewish people of Jesus’ day hated each other. Someone like the teacher of the law would have walked miles out of his way to avoid setting foot on Samarian soil. Jesus took someone the teacher of the law would have found thoroughly reprehensible and made him the hero. Where the other two people did nothing, the Samaritan went above and beyond. He not only went out of his way to care, he did something. He helped. He cleaned the man up, he bound the wounds. He took the man to the inn, arranged for his care and agreed to pay any extra expenses. He did everything right. And that’s the point.
I don’t know why the priest and the levite walked on by. Jesus never tells us. Maybe they were too busy or thought themselves too important. Maybe they were scared. Maybe they didn’t want to get their hands dirty. Maybe they were too proud, too high and mighty. Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved. The teacher of the law was asking, “Who is my neighbor?” and Jesus was showing him that high position and social respectability were not enough. Pride, arrogance, fear and more walk on by, but friends, Love stops.
To love your neighbor is more than a nice platitude, it’s a call to action. It’s a call to meet a need. A call to see a problem, a struggle, an injustice and to take action, to do something, rather than waiting for that mythical somebody who ought to do something about this. When you see something somebody ought to do something about, consider the fact that somebody just might be you. There are a million excuses. A million reasons to walk on by, but love cares. Love helps. Love stops.
AMOKArts 