Midweek Lent, 2025 + Love Does No Wrong to a Neighbor +
Week 3: Your neighbor is more important than your convictions
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Romans 14:7-19; Luke 10:25-37
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
The priest and the Levite might have had theological or ritual excuses for not stopping.
If the man was dead, for example, they’d be unclean for service if they touched him. Maybe they objected to getting involved in messy things. Or they had things they needed to do. They had convictions, reasons, for not stopping.
And today Paul says, “who cares? Who cares? Don’t ever let anything get in the way of your love,” he says, “not your theology or convictions or practices.” And Jesus simply asks, “who acted as a neighbor?”
Imagine what the history of Christianity would look like if our passion as Church had been loving our neighbor, loving our siblings inside and outside the faith, even enemies, rather than fighting over doctrine or claiming individual salvation.
Maybe it matters what’s right and wrong in religious teachings or behaviors. But the last 2,000 years suggest we should have listened to what Jesus and Paul say is most important.
Paul understands our problem. It’s the same that faces his Roman friends.
Paul is exhorting against people in the community judging one another. Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians have profound disagreements with each other. There are arguments over Torah, over feast days, over kosher food, over drinking wine or abstaining. And it’s breaking up the congregations in Rome. People are losing their faith.
To this Paul says, “We do not live to ourselves and we do not die to ourselves. Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” It’s not about your convictions or mine, Paul says. Our life of faith is about living in Christ as Christ in love.
In fact, Paul never rules on which point of view on feast days or alcohol or Torah is right. Their differing theologies and practices are valid, Paul says. But like the priest and the Levite, those convictions are keeping them from loving each other in Christ. And nothing can excuse that.
That’s the heart of it all. We live and die to Christ, not ourselves. We can’t have a relationship with God in Christ without having a relationship with everyone else Christ loves.
But relationships are hard. And not just when our convictions differ.
We talk about this here at Mount Olive when our neighbors who are in need come for help. The easy answer is to give them enough to make them go away. But if we’re really Christ, we’ll have to have a relationship with them. And some days the flow of need is pretty strong. Whether it’s challenging guests on Sunday morning or the crowds filling our west lounge on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it can seem overwhelming.
Because it means developing relationships. We can’t shut off our care once we know someone. Having relationships with people as people costs much more than just giving something to anonymous faces. We’re obligated, invested.
That’s likely another reason the first two walked by. It’s not just that they didn’t want to help the man in the ditch. They could see it wouldn’t be a quick fix. It would mean doing what the Samaritan did. It would cost time to stabilize him, it would take time to get him somewhere, and they’d have to pay for his care. They’d have to get to know him. It would start a relationship.
It’s easier to walk by on the other side. Once you’re in a relationship, you can’t do that anymore. For any reason.
That’s what the lawyer needs to learn.
“What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” he asks Jesus. But faith in Christ has never been an individual thing. Jesus always called individuals into community. Christian faith is only lived in community with others, caring for others as Christ, receiving care from others as Christ. That’s eternal life here.
The lawyer knew the answer to his question was to love God and love neighbor. But he asked “who is my neighbor?” maybe hoping to limit the damage, limit the list of those he needed to care for.
But Jesus reversed the question, like Paul. He said the thing that matters is, who acted as a neighbor. We do not live to ourselves. Jesus says “Stop asking how to get right with God and get into that ditch and start a relationship. Be a neighbor.”
And that’s what God wants you and me to learn, so we can change.
Every time we hear Jesus say, “if you did it to the least of these, you did it to me,” we have a chance for the Spirit to change us. Every time Jesus asks, “who acted as a neighbor,” we have a chance to let the Spirit make us a neighbor, give us a relationship. Every time Paul says, “quit fighting about your convictions because you’re hurting your sister’s faith, your brother’s hope,” we have a chance to be open to the Spirit’s wisdom and change our priorities.
Everything else, Paul says, is nonsense. Worthless. Like a clanging gong, as he told the Corinthians. Even worse, it’s destructive and damaging, as we see so strongly in much of American Christianity today.
Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It’s time we lived the other truth, that nothing must stop us from loving God’s children in Christ Jesus. Nothing.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
