You Shall Love Your Neighbor as Yourself: I Am the Lord Leviticus 19:9-18; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

 

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God, our Father, and our Lord, Jesus Christ, who teaches us how to love one another.

 

Our message is from our Old Testament Reading, especially verse 18: You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

 

You shall love your neighbor, your fellow human being, our sermon text says. And why?

 

“Because I am the Lord”, the Lord says.

 

Because I am your God, your Creator and Maker, and this is why I made you, to add love, not sin and selfishness to the world. 

 

I made you for the highest purpose, to love Me, and then to love your neighbor. I am the Lord, who made you for this.

 

I made you for this purpose, and I made you with this power, the power to love.

 

I made you able to love, because I made you in My own personal image.

 

I didn’t make you a plant, or an animal, or a reptile, or a virus, or bacteria, I made you a person, a human being, in my image, with many powers, but above all, the power to love…

 

… to love Me and My Creation, especially my human creation, your fellow human being, your neighbor.

 

And not just those the closest to you, or the easiest for you to love, or those from whom you have the most to gain…

… but also those who are different from you, or far away…

… and those who are the hardest to love, even those who are an inconvenience to love, and even those who may not love us back.

 

Jesus illustrates this gift godly of love in our Gospel, with the much known and loved story of the Good Samaritan.

 

The merchant traveler happened upon a man, beaten by robbers and left for dead. The others had passed on by him, perhaps because it would have been an inconvenience to stop and help, it would slowed them down, maybe made them late for an appointment.

 

Perhaps they feared it was trap, and that the offenders were waiting for someone to stop, so they could spring on them and rob them, too.

 

Maybe, if they had a transactional view of relationships, (I’ll do something good for you if you do something good for me), and so they saw no benefit for themselves in stopping and helping the man who had been robbed and had nothing to give them in return.

 

There have been many reasons those who passed on by didn’t stop and help the dying man, some that were perhaps justifiable in their minds, but in the eyes of God, who had made and commanded them, and us, to love our neighbor as ourselves, in the eyes of their Creator there was no good excuse not to show love to the man in need… 

 

… and in the eyes of our Redeemer, there is no good reason for us not to love our neighbor. 

 

No one is harder for God to love than I am, and you are…

 

… and everyone, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,  Romans 3:23 says, and are justified freely by His grace, through the redemption of Jesus Christ.  

 

We’ve all insulted and mocked God by our sin against Him, and by our brazen unbelief, which is a part of our fallen nature. 

 

Left to ourselves and our own sinful nature, none us would love God, and trust in His Son as our Savior. 

 

We only do because God loves us so much that, in the Gospel and in Holy Baptism, He has sent His Spirit to abide in our spirit, with the power to believe in our Creator and Redeemer.

 

Our Lord looked down on us in mercy, seeing us like the poor, beaten man in the parable, lying half-dead, dying along the road.

 

Spiritually, that’s us without God in our lives. Ephesians 2:1 says, You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you used to live. 

 

Looking beyond the surface, beyond the skin and into our hearts, our Lord saw us dead in our souls… and our bodies in the sure and certain process of dying.   

 

God looked on us with compassion, even as He saw us reaping what we have sown, suffering the consequences of our sin.

 

The wages of sin is death, God tells in Romans 6:23… but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

 

God saw our deepest and most desperate need, to be saved from death, physical and eternal death, and He personally came to fulfill that need, to rescue us from what we have done to ourselves, from the abuse and punishment and death we’ve brought on ourselves by our foolish insistence upon sinning against God and our neighbor.

 

Jesus came and took the worst of it for us, the worst of the abuse and the punishment; He died the worst death for us.

 

Us, His children, His brothers and sisters, His neighbor, He loved us with a love so great that it redeemed us, a love that gave Him the courage to bear all our sins on a cross until it killed Him.

 

The highest price that could be paid, Jesus paid that we might live in His love forever.

 

This great love of Christ is the supreme example we have to show us how to truly, deeply and dearly love our neighbor. 

 

 

Back to the parable, as the Good Samaritan helped the hurting man even though it was an inconvenience to him, maybe even a danger to him, even though it would cost him, even though it was done to no acclaim, even though he might never see the man again, even though he would never be repaid, yet he loved and treated his neighbor, his fellow human being, as he would want to be treated.

 

This is the love of God at work in His people, His redeemed, by which we are called and empowered to love and treat others. As Jesus says in our Gospel, “Go and do likewise.”

 

In our Old Testament, God calls and commands His people to show this nontransactional or unconditional mercy to others.

 

He says when you harvest your crops, don’t go back and get what you missed, leave some behind for the poor, or the traveler. 

 

I am the Lord, this is what I would do, and this is what I would have you do. 

 

You may never even see those who are being helped by this, and you may never get anything in return, nor receive any favor. 

 

 

 

Do it because I ask to, because I tell you, that this the good way to live…

 

… because everything you have is from Me, because I’ve done far more than this for you…

 

… because I love those who will be receiving this kindness just as I love you…

 

… because it is more blessed to give than to receive, our Lord says in Acts 20:35…

 

… because your kindness honors Me, and bears witness to My love for the world.

 

You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

 

Great words to live by, thousands of years ago, and today.

 

Some day we’ll live perfectly and eternally, loving each other this way.

 

For today, with God’s help, let us live more this way. 

 

Our goal for today is to make it more like tomorrow, and by tomorrow I mean our eternal future, our eternity in Heaven, where we will love our God, and all His holy Creation, and each other, perfectly and joyfully.

 

And so today, and every day on earth, let us remember who our Lord is, and what He has done and still does for us, and so let us, with His help, strive to love our neighbor as He loves us.

 

And with this love, His peace, which passes understanding, will guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who teaches us how to truly love one another. Amen.