Luke 10: Passive Questions and Active Questions in the story of the Good Samaritan

Jacopo Bassano, The Good Samaritan, via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

In Luke 10, we read the story of the Good Samaritan. And though I've heard this story over and over again in my life, this last time I went through it, I noticed something new.

I noticed that the question the lawyer asks Jesus ("Who is my neighbor?") is not quite the same question that Jesus asks back at the end of the parable ("Who was a neighbor?", or, "which of these . . . proved to be a neighbor . . .?")

The Lawyer's Question
The lawyer asks a question that requires no action on his part, if that makes sense. He's not asking who he is, he's asking who other people are to him.

Jesus' Question
But - and I'd never quite noticed this before - Jesus doesn't answer his question. Not exactly. Jesus doesn't tell him, exactly, who his neighbor is.

Jesus tells him about a man choosing to be a neighbor.

In other words, the lawyer asks, "How do I know which people are my neighbors?"

And Jesus says, "By what fruit is a  neighbor known?"


The Command, and it's not just for the lawyer, but also for us . . .
And then, of course, "Go thou, and do likewise."


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Scripture Reflections (Daniel, Luke, and Revelations)

These are my notes on the week's readings. I'm posting them here just because I realized I wanted to start keeping track of my notes! The bolded quotations are just phrases that really stood out to me. 

Notes on the end of Daniel:
-Daniel sounds so different than the other Old Testament prophets. His diction and word choice - even in translation - sound foreign when compared to, say, Isaiah. I think it must be the influence of his Babylonian education.*
And here's the thing: how cool is that? When Daniel heard the Lord, he described the experience in his own voice. Yet it's recognizably the word of the Lord. The message rings true with the rest of the Scripture. You can hear the formational experience of the prophet in the diction, and apparently the Lord was willing to let that abide, and yet it doesn't - in the least - obscure the strength and goodness of the Lord's word to His people.
So cool.

-is Daniel 9 related to Solomon's temple dedication prayer? < --This was my question as I listened to it this time through.
In Daniel 9, Daniel prays:

O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by Your name; for we are not presenting our supplications before You on the account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion.

O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your Name. (vs. 18-19)

Now, doesn't that sound like Solomon's prayer here, when he dedicated the temple?

When Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy, because they have sinned against You, if they turn to You again and confess Your name and pray and make supplication to You in this house, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which You gave to their fathers. (I Kings 8:33-34) 

Daniel was doing what Solomon had asked the Lord to let his people do: turn towards the Lord and repent and beg for restoration.

-Dan. 10: "the thing was true, but the time appointed was long"

-Dan. 10 - he saw the vision; the men with him didn't, but trembled . . . like Paul on the road to Damascus.

-"oh Daniel, a man greatly beloved, stand upright, for unto thee I am now sent"

-there is still really a lot in Daniel that I just do not understand . . .

Notes on Luke 1:
-I love Luke's introduction. "In order". Hear, hear! "that you may be sure of the things wherein you have been instructed . . ." Luke speaks my language!

-"blessed is she who believed! for . . ." (like Abraham - Mary believed (and it was counted to her as righteousness? seems so . . .))

-"that we, being delivered from our enemies, might serve Him without fear . . ."

-Luke 1 is just such a dear, dear chapter. It's so familiar - if you pray any of the daily offices in the BCP, you know the Magnificat and Zechariah's song - and the more I hear it and read it, the more I love it . . . it feels like family history, you know? but better, and greater, and more glorious . . .

Notes on the end of Revelation:
-Rev 21: "behold, the tabernacle of the Lord shall be with man . . ." Seriously. This whole passage. Where we're heading. Where we've been (it's the Old Testament promise, finally come really, really true).
"I will give to him that is athirst . . ."

-Rev. 21 - the measuring of the holy Jerusalem - this is like undoing what was done in Ezekiel, when the temple was measured and the glory of the Lord departed . . . and now the Lord is the temple and the Lamb the light . . .

-in Rev. 21, the list of those who will not be there sounds so harsh, until you stop to think that if you let adulterers and whoremongers and sorcerers in . . . then you have to live with adultery and prostitution and horrors . . . and how is that heaven? those are all those things that make this earth such a terror and a burden to live in. And that will all be gone. Thank God.

-"seal not the words of this book . . ." this isn't a secret. Let them know what's coming. "and he who is righteous, let him be righteous still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still . . ."




*To be totally honest, listening to Daniel - at least in the KJV version - reminds me of the style of the Tarkheena's storytelling in Lewis' The Horse and His Boy.

Weekly Scripture Reflections

These are my notes on the week's readings. I'm posting them here just because I realized I wanted to start keeping track of my notes! And I'd to hear your insights from your weekly devotions, too!


Luke 22:
-in this gospel, the argument about who will be greatest comes right after the argument about who will betray Jesus. Were they talking about both at the same time? Did talking about who was going to be the awfullest disciple prompt boasting about who was the best?

That sounds very, very terrible . . . but very, very human at the same time.

-when the disciples could not stay awake with Jesus in Gethsemane . . . it says they slept for sorrow. Somehow I had never noticed that detail before.

-after the angel strengthened Jesus, He prayed more. Was that what he needed strength for? The prayer? If so, then so must we . . .

Psalm 101:
-"I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked-doers from the city of the LORD."  Doesn't that sound like a clarion call to early morning prayer and confession?

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

we do what we can

I’m facing writing the chapter in my book that terrifies me to write, because I’m not equal to it. It’s the heart of the story, and I’m so scared I’m going to get it wrong. It is, in fact, not the place where the gospel is told, but where it is shown, and I'm scared I'm going to get it wrong. 

(I’m not scared that I’m wrong about what’s supposed to happen; it’s that what’s supposed to happen is so exactly right that I’m scared I won’t be able to write it well, because I am not exactly right.)

But then I was reading Fr. Reardon’s commentary on this week's readings today and read this section, where he is discussing Luke's accounts of the women who went to Jesus' grave to anoint his body after his death (emphasis mine):

Now there is a certain kind of “practical” person, an efficiency expert, who does not much appreciate what the Myrrhbearers were up to. Had he encountered them on the road that morning, he might well have asked them, “Just what good do you think you are going to accomplish?” Anointing a dead body, after all, does not make good business sense. It achieves nothing very practical. It is the sort of activity that fails to contribute to the Gross National Product. Except for its very small influence on the myrrh market, spice trading, and nard futures, it barely shows up on the Dow Industrials. It has no measurable results. The corpses thus anointed cannot be interviewed to ascertain if they are satisfied with the product, or which brand they prefer, or whether they would recommend it to their neighbors. Anointing dead bodies resists a quantitative analysis.

Over and against this quantitative point of view stands the completely unproductive, uneconomical, inefficient assessment of the ointment-pouring scene at Bethany: “She has done what she could” (Mark 14:8). In that assessment of the thing, we arrive very near the heart of the Gospel. Quite simply: We do what we can. We do not attempt to measure what we do, certainly not by its perceived results. We act solely out of love, letting God alone determine whether we have “loved much” (Luke 7:47). The final quality of our lives will not be assessed by what we have accomplished, but by our love (1 Corinthians 13:24). Only the God who reads the heart can put a value on that love.

Prominent in the midst of the Church, then, are those Myrrhbearers who came that morning loaded down with their spices and without the foggiest idea how they were going to enter a sealed tomb guarded by a massive stone. What an exercise in inefficiency, lack of cost analysis, and failure in planning. As it turned out, they could not even find a body to anoint. All that myrrh, just going to waste.

And I am reassured. “We do what we can. We do not attempt to measure what we do, certainly not by its perceived results. We act solely out of love, letting God alone determine whether we have ‘loved much’.”

Well. Now, at least, I know how to approach my work today. I will do what I can. I will do it out of love. I will pray for God’s mercy on me.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell