A scholar of the law asks Jesus a question he already knows the answer to. We know the answer as well. So what is the purpose of the story? It is to shock us into realizing that we only think we know the answer, that we need to move beyond our preconceived notions and prejudices to really know who our neighbor is. The first answer about loving God completely is from the end of the Shema (Deut 6:4-9), a prayer said by observant Jews at least twice a day. The second command about complete love of neighbor comes from Leviticus 19:18 and is part of the Holiness Code. In accepting both responses Jesus affirms that the Christian path to eternal life is through loving God and neighbor completely. But the question remains: Who is my neighbor?

 

The story of the Good Samaritan is found only in Luke. It is well known to many. Priests and Levites, because of their association with the Temple and Jewish worship, are the epitome of the good Jew and follower of the true God. Samaritans are the opposite. They don’t worship in Jerusalem but on Mt. Gerazim. They don’t follow the laws God requires and so cannot be followers of the true God. They are beyond the bounds of a good Jew’s ethnic and religious group and so could not possibly be a neighbor. Yet they have one thing the priest and the Levite lack, a commitment in kindness to a person in need. Luke is not saying that proper worship and following God’s law is not important. They definitely are. But more important is showing mercy to those in need. That is what makes a true neighbor. We are to go and do likewise.

 

 

 

 

This account of Jesus with Martha and Mary, like the Good Samaritan, is also unique to Luke. And it serves as a compliment to that story. The Good Samaritan emphasizes the need for action to be a follower of Jesus. This story is about the need to sit and listen. It’s not that Martha’s service is not important. It is. But it is excessive because it is missing one thing, the one thing necessary, the listing needed to assure being a true disciple. The true service Jesus requires is attention to his teaching, not excessive concern for his physical needs. Service that lacks attention to Jesus’ instruction has missed the better part.

 

 

After stories about the need for action and the need to also stop and listen the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. We have three versions of the “Our Father” from the first two centuries of Christianity. Luke’s is the shortest, followed by Matthew’s which is the most familiar to us, followed by the Didache 8:2, which includes the closing doxology.

 

The prayer is simple and to the point. There is an opening address: Father (not “our”), followed by two wishes: that God’s holiness be recognized and that his saving kingdom might arrive. These are followed by three brief requests: that God sustain the community in it’s daily need for food; that their sins might be forgiven; that they be kept from the temptation to give up the faith. The second petition also reminds God of their own willingness to forgive others. Two examples of persistence and how humans respond to requests then follow.

 

The first example of the persistent friend should not leave us with the impression that God is like an acquaintance who does not want to help us unless we wear him out by consistent asking for something. Its intent is to emphasize the need for persistence in prayer. The second mentions three ways we request something of others (asking, searching, knocking at a door) and the responses we can receive (a gift, a discovery, a welcome). And what God gives is always good. And besides all that we ask for, though maybe not in ways we expected it, he also gives us the Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel is the parable of the rich fool. Look sets the scene for this parable as someone in the crowd asks Jesus to tell his brother to share his inheritance with him. Jesus’ response to him makes it that unlike other religious teachers in Palestine his job was not to settle legal questions. And his job is not to settle family disputes. Though he settles it in a sense as he uses the opportunity to point out that material possessions are not what are important in life. Family disputes are not caused by how wealth is distributed but by desiring goods that are not important in the first place.