The question for us is this: as we move through this season, will we allow ourselves to become disconnected, or will we intentionally abide in Christ so that He can grow something lasting in us and through us?

The Bible reveals to us how to have a successful life: relationship with God and because of it, relationships with others. During this series we’ve been challenged that everyone is our neighbor, opportunities exist to become better neighbors, to go the extra mile, and that Jesus needs to pull us out of the ditch. The question that remains is this: if our hearts change, how can we each be a better neighbor here at St. Luke and in our own neighborhood - how will I serve?

The Jewish people had four forms of questions students asked their rabbis. The questions were all intended to discern the way a of a moral or successful life. When the expert in the law challenged Jesus, he’s asking him whether or not he knows the way to a moral or successful life, and wants to justify that he (the expert in the law) is on the path to that kind of life. When Jesus flips the script and shares that the way of the moral and successful life comes not from self-justification but God’s justification, it challenges all the assumptions. In a defining moment, the one who is an expert in the law is revealed to really be the one stuck in the ditch. What’s the remedy? Letting Christ pull him out. The same is true for us. How will we allow Jesus to pull us out of the ditch this week?

Being a good neighbor isn’t difficult in theory. It’s just difficult in practice. Why? It costs something. A Samaritan chose to engage with a difficult neighbor, and it took time, resources, and care. What’s difficult about serving our neighbors isn’t that we need some kind of ingenious program or rhetoric, it’s that we are required to make a sacrifice. Love is a sacrifice. How will you go the extra mile for your neighbor this week?