August 22, 2025; Luke 10:25-42

Daily Dose of Hope

August 22, 2025

Scripture – Luke 10:25-42

Prayer:  Lord, How we need you.  Thank you for your presence, thank you for the way you continue to pursue us.  Lord, in these next few moments of silence, help us set aside our scattered thoughts and focus on you...In Your Name, Amen.

Welcome back, everyone, to the Daily Dose of Hope, a deep dive into the Gospels and Acts.  Happy Friday!  Today, we dive into the second half of Luke 10.

The first portion of today’s reading is the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The story begins with an expert in religious law asking Jesus, “What should I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s possible this lawyer/religious academic type is actually trying to trap Jesus.  These guys tended to think Jesus had a low regard for Law. But this man didn’t realize that Jesus was actually smarter than him. Jesus answers, “What does the law say?” As you know, the Old Testament law is really long and rather than just starting to read the whole law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, it was not uncommon to summarize it with two precepts:

·      Deut. 6:5 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with your soul and with all your strength.”

·      Lev. 19:18 says, “...love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”

Now, these are really, really hard principles.  The law expert, a smart man, would have known there was really no way for him to obey this law on his own. But he wanted to justify himself.  He wanted to keep trying to find a way that he could obey the law in his own power, so he asks Jesus, “Well, who is my neighbor?”  And, as we know, Jesus uses this opportunity to share a parable. 

He says that a man was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Now, the first thing we need to understand about this road is that it was really, really dangerous. Think more dangerous than Nebraska Ave. at midnight. But there weren’t a whole lot of options so people did it. Now part of what made the road so dangerous was its geography. It was 17 miles long and drops 3,000 ft. during those 17 miles. The geography also lended itself to lots of caves and nooks where bands of thieves and robbers could hang out and just wait for their next victim.

What’s kind of interesting here is that Jesus does not give us a lot of information about the man who is traveling. The people Jesus was speaking to would probably automatically assume the man was a Jew like them. What we do know is that he was beaten, stripped, is probably unconscious, beaten, bloodied, and is unidentifiable. The guy was left for dead.

Now, the first man that walks by this poor guy, lying half-dead on the road, is a priest, a man of God. The Scripture says that “he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.” Then a temple assistant, a Levite, walked by. This time, we are given information that he looked at the man lying there, but he also decided to walk to the other side and pass the dying man without providing any help.

Next comes a Samaritan man. Many of you know that the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. 800 years before Jesus, the Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians. What the Assyrians did was disperse the Jews living there and sent groups of pagan peoples to settle in the area. The result was a lot of intermarrying between the Jews and these other people groups. So, the “purer” Jews, from the Southern Kingdom, considered the Samaritans half-breeds and looked on them with extreme contempt. In fact, the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans could probably best be described by the relationship between Jews and Palestinians – conflict, violence, and hatred.

The Samaritan finds the man half-dead along the road and he decides to care for him. He treats the man’s wounds, puts him on a donkey, and carries him off to an inn. He pays for his care and makes sure that he is nursed back to health. He offers over the top kindness, the kind that is never expected and never could be repaid.

Okay, let’s start with the most obvious questions.  Why did the priest and Levite walk by the dying man?  Why did the neglect someone who was obviously suffering?  Well, it would have made them ritually unclean to come into contact with blood.  They were afraid of that.  They would have found it time-consuming and maybe even embarrassing to arrive at the Temple and say, “Hey, guys, I’m unclean, can’t do my work today.” 

There was also the fear of physical harm (are the guys who robbed him still around?) and the reality of inconvenience.  All of these are excuses that could have been overcome and dealt with but they weren’t willing to do it.

The Samaritan man could have been plagued by the same fears. He could have been attacked, he dealt with inconvenience, he gave sacrificially in order to save this man’s life. But he did it anyway.  And that is what we are called to do.  What does it mean to be a neighbor?  It means being like this Samaritan.  It means dealing with the mess, the risk, and the inconvenience to show love and mercy to another person.

The last portion of today’s reading is the story of Mary and Martha.  I think we often misunderstand this story. Afterall, the problem with Martha is not that she is busy serving and providing hospitality. Certainly, Jesus commends this kind of service to neighbor many times, notably in the parable of the Good Samaritan that we just read. The problem with Martha is not her serving, but rather that she is worried and distracted. She is fluttering about, messing with the food preparations, legitimately more concerned with finishing dinner than anything else.

Martha’s distraction and worry leave no room for the most important aspect of hospitality--gracious attention to the guest. In fact, she breaks all the rules of hospitality by trying to embarrass her sister in front of her guest and by asking her guest to intervene in a family dispute. She even goes so far as to accuse Jesus of not caring about her (Lord, do you not care...?). Martha’s worry and distraction prevent her from being truly present with Jesus. She has missed out on the “one thing needed” for true hospitality: listening to your guest (especially if the guest is Jesus!) Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.

Jesus’ words to Martha may be seen as an invitation rather than a rebuke. Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. The one thing needed is for Martha to receive the gracious presence of Jesus, to listen to his words, to know that she is valued not for what she does or how well she does it, but for who she is as a child of God.

In a culture of hustle and bustle and over-scheduling, we are tempted to measure our worth by how busy we are, by how much we accomplish, or by how well we meet the expectations of others. We are often Marthas, thinking the busier we are, the more productive we must be. But being distracted and worried often gets in the way of our spiritual walk. Being distracted and worried gets in the way of us listening to Jesus.

When is the last time you sat at the feet of Jesus and simply listened to him? How often do you set aside time to just be still before God? Even Jesus himself made time, in the midst of a very busy schedule, to be alone with God. We know that God calls us to be listeners of his Word and doers of the Word. But how often do we participate in activities without really soaking up God first? When we do that, we are bound to serve without joy, with pride, for the wrong reasons.

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki