http://www.thesacredpage.com/2013/07/wont-you-be-my-neighbor-15th-sunday-of.html
Jesus’ teaching is in continuity with the best synthesis of the moral instruction of the Old Testament and Judaism, which views every human being as a “neighbor.
The name “Deuteronomy” comes from the Greek deutero nomos, “the second law.”
Deuteronomy is the fifth and last of the Torah, the “Books of Moses,” and it summarizes and interprets the preceding four.
Moses himself dies at the end of Deuteronomy, so this book is the final statement, the final will and testament, of the great Lawgiver of the Israelite nation.
Deuteronomy is one of the top three most-quoted books in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (along with Psalms and Isaiah).
He has communed intimately with God for forty years “face to face,” so he understands God’s nature and love.
Ten times the Book of Numbers records Israel rebelling against God and Moses in the wilderness.
the law of the God of Israel, in its essence, is the “natural law,” the fundamental law of right and wrong that is written into our nature.
We see ourselves as the poor and afflicted in need, who require the mercy and kindness of the Lord, whose love is so well expressed in the actions of the Good Samaritan
although right and wrong are written on the human heart, very few accurately perceive what is good and what is evil without the help of God’s revelation.
When we receive God’s Word with humility, and accept his definitions of good and evil, suddenly “the lights come on.”
God’s highest revelation of Himself is the person Jesus Christ, whom we call the “Word” of God.
Since in a very real sense we were created by Jesus, it is not inexplicable that our natural sense of right and wrong should correspond to to the positive law we find in Scripture: the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Two Greatest Commandments.
All persons, whatever their ethnic or religious background, were made “in Christ” and in his image.
Christ’s suffering and death is the universal proof to all humanity of God’s merciful love for us, and his resurrection the universal proof of God’s ultimate power and goodness.
He summarizes all 613 commands of the Mosaic Torah under two broad commands: love of God, and love of fellow human beings.
After Jesus’ reply, the scribe wants to “justify himself.” He begins to rationalize: “Let me limit the number of people that the concept ‘neighbor’ applies to, and then the moral law won’t be so demanding!”
The Spirit does not excuse our sins or “let us off the hook.” Instead, the Spirit makes it possible for us to follow God’s law of love truly, and from the heart
words, deeds of mercy take precedence over cultic concerns, even in the Old Testament itself. The priest and Levite may have been liturgically correct, but failed to grasp the heart of God’s law.
the Assyrian army conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and deported the middle and upper classes. The King of Assyria brought in several Gentile ethnic groups to replace the deported Israelites (2 Kings 17:7-41). These Gentiles mixed with the low-class Israelites left behind, producing the Samaritans
Samaritans offered to help build the Temple in Jerusalem when the Jews returned from Babylonian exile c. 537-520, but they were rebuffed by the Jews (Ezra 4:1-4). The Samaritans then decided to build their own Temple on Mt. Gerizim in northern Israelite territory.
there was simply no theological justification for building a Temple to the LORD on Mt. Gerizim
Although the Samaritan has admittedly wrong views about where to worship and how, he does understand that mercy takes precedence over cultic purity (Hos. 6:6), and thus—ironically—he has a better fundamental understanding of the Law of God than the priest or Levite.
The scholar had asked “Who is my neighbor (to me)?” but Jesus teaches a lesson on how to be a neighbor to other people.
The beaten man is a symbol of Everyman, of the human condition. The priest and Levite represent the Old Covenant (i.e. the Mosaic Covenant), which is good in itself but does not have the power to save us. The Good Samaritan is a type of Jesus himself. Although Jesus was not a Samaritan, he was accused of being one (John 8:48) and he consistently showed love for the Samaritan people (John 4; Luke 9:51-55). The Jewish religious authorities viewed Jesus as similar to a “Samaritan,” in that he did not observe the “proper” cleanliness laws and departed from the standard Jewish tradition (the teachings of the elders) in his interpretation of the Law. Thus Jesus is the one rejected by the religious leaders, who nonetheless comes to us, observes our pitiful condition, and condescends to bandage our “wounds” and care for us, even though it means “contaminating” himself by contact with our corruption and sin.
The interpretation of the rest of God’s laws should be directed to the fulfillment of these two commands.
We should show this same compassion to others, be willing to overlook whatever boundaries—race, religion, political party, culture, etc.—that would otherwise prevent us from recognizing a person as our “neighbor.”
