We test Jesus.
Testing Jesus? What? Never! Deuteronomy 6:16 makes this clear: we are not to put the Lord, our God, to the test.
Then this past Sunday’s sermon rolled along. Now I think differently.
I raised then what I raise now. What if we do test Jesus, or at least we did test Jesus at some point in our past?
First up, we are not be alone. Throughout the gospels, the religious leaders of the day test Jesus. These religious powermongers (otherwise known as the Pharisees and Sadducees) try to trap Jesus in his own words. The goal in their line of questioning is to reveal to the world that Jesus is a fake. This nobody from a nowhere place like Nazareth is a fraud.
We meet such an individual in Luke 10, which is a part of this past Sunday’s lectionary text. The conversation partner with Jesus is not identified as a Pharisee or Sadducee. Instead, our author Luke nebulously titles him a religious expert. This expert’s line of testing creates for Jesus the teaching moment which introduces us to the Good Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan is a clear example of risk-taking love across borders and boundaries. The do-good, feel-good story exemplifies what it means to care for one’s neighbor. This care is not a wellspring out of our convenience. Instead, it comes from an inner, heart-responding place of deep, God-given love for someone from a different racial, religious, or socioeconomic location.
The story rests on the action of the Good Samaritan, but a concurrent story happens between Jesus and this religious expert. Remember, this expert tests Jesus.
It is likely he tests Jesus to trap this radical, justice-seeking upstart. After all, Jesus is a very real and troublesome challenge to his profession in religion.
But there’s another way to look at this interaction. In experiencing the Son of God face to face, his original goal of trapping Jesus may have remained intact, but maybe he changes. He wouldn’t be the first to encounter God wrapped in human form and radically shift direction as a result. I think of the woman at the well. I think of Zacchaeus. I mention both individuals in last week’s column. These two very different people from two very different locations encounter Jesus and are forever changed. They are forever changed because Jesus hears the hurts in their hearts and heals them. This healing brings joy. This healing also brings a love for the Lord that we can catch, experience ourselves, and pass along much like the Good Samaritan did to the one left to die alongside the road.
Does the religious expert comply and follow Jesus not with hesitation but joy? I don’t know. He may have left Jesus and remained just as snarky and as selfish as he likely was before.
But Jesus is Jesus. Maybe something Jesus said, or how Jesus said it, reached him. Maybe it was the story of the Good Samaritan itself. Maybe it was a look Jesus gave that enabled the dam in the religious expert’s heart to finally break.
He could have changed from being a trapper to being an agent of God’s love.
I’ve seen God change hearts.
Maybe it was good that he did test Jesus. Maybe this weight on his heart is something he didn’t want to carry anymore, and he needed to hear that radical love for one’s neighbor, while it may seem crazy at first, is exactly what he was called to do.
Think about the weight on your own heart. In your pit of grief or in your bones of anger, you ask, “Why this?”
You may even ask “Why this?” to Jesus. Is this disrespectful? Is this not to be done?
It depends on who you ask, but I think asking Jesus—even testing Jesus—is an interaction. And interactions with Jesus? Sure, you can leave them as if nothing happened, but even if you think you are done with Jesus, I have news. Jesus is not done with you.
I read the same headlines you do. No, we are not loving our neighbor as we should.
That doesn’t mean we can’t try. It certainly doesn’t mean we should stop the love we can do.
Leave a Reply