Unfinished Faith: Relearning God.

Week 16:

The bit where I introduce: 

One of my favourite parables is the Good Samaritan. Why? Because it is an unlikely tale of the unexpected and challenges us to think what would we do in this situation? Who am I in this story? It should unsettle us… this question, although somewhat loaded by the scholar who knew the law and was trying to “test” Jesus. I know I was thinking the same… as if He was going to trick Jesus?  Jesus once again shows his tolerance and patience by constructing the ultimate teachable moment.

The bit where I refer to the bible: and ask a few  rhetorical questions:

Luke 10:25-37 (but read the whole chapter if you can) is our reference this week.

This parable shows us that the expected heroes, the religious insiders the ones who knew how to worship, they pass by, too busy to stop and help. Probably not out of cruelty, but perhaps caution, busyness or the subtle ways we can justify distance.

Then along comes the Samaritan, the outsider, viewed through both cultural and religious lenses as the least likely person to reflect God’s heart. Yet he becomes the one who shows it most clearly. He responds with costly mercy: tending the wounds of a stranger he did not harm, setting aside his own plans, and taking on the burden of care at his own expense, an act that goes far beyond what duty would require.

But…in looking deeper we can take a moment to deepen our thinking and our theology.

Jesus reframes the question ( love a good reframe) The scholar asks, ‘Will I act as a neighbour?” Jesus responds, “Will you become a neighbour?”  The interesting bit is that the religious leader already knows the right answer. When Jesus asks him what the law says, he answers correctly: love God and love your neighbour, but the issue isn’t knowledge, it’s the limits he’s trying to place around obedience.

Jesus is exposing the gap between knowing the law and living it out. It’s one thing to understand or agree with what’s right, but another to go the extra mile and embody it in everyday life, that’s the real goal. In other words, it’s possible to understand it theologically, yet still resist it practically when it stretches beyond our “comfort or categories.”

I think Jesus is no longer talking about “neighbour” as in proximity, similarity or shared identity.

You see, from my research back in the day, Samaritans and Jews lived with deep division culturally, theologically etc. Not unlike the divisions we see in our world today. The Samaritan was a figure from a group regarded by many Jews as religiously compromised and socially alien. But it was the Samaritan who became the true example of mercy and becomes the modeller of compassion. This is the sticking point I think Jesus challenges us with that mercy can appear in places our categories have already dismissed.

The Samaritan represents the way Jesus confronts our assumptions about who truly reflects the heart of God. The one we might instinctively distance ourselves from, may be the person God uses to reveal himself more clearly than those we think we assume will!

In a 2026 lens it would look like this:

Your neighbour is not only the person who thinks like you, votes like you, goes to the same denomination as you, or understands your story.

Your neighbour is the colleague, family member or friend that unsettles you

The parent at school or on social media whose life choices you quietly judge.

The person in your community, sport’s club or street whose beliefs feel “wrong” to you.

It’s the one who interrupts your time, your comfort and your status.

The Good Samaritan invites us into a costly love, we don’t really like those kinds, do we?  Love in action. But…here’s the crux of it, before we were neighbours to others Jesus became the ultimate neighbour to us. He crossed the divide; He drew near to humanity wounded by our sin and suffering. He didn’t just pass by; He bore the cost.

So, when Jesus says, “Go and do likewise,” He’s not pressuring us, it is to participate in the very love we have received from Him. He is inviting us to embody the mercy we ourselves have received, the love that refused to stay distant!

The bit where you get to think about stuff: Questions for the week.

Where am I quietly drawing lines around who I consider my neighbour?

Who in my life right now feels like “the other” and what might it look like to move toward them rather than past them?

How has Jesus drawn near to you in ways you didn’t deserve and how does that reshape the way you love?