GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY

Making time 'to go out of your way', or 'put yourself out for someone else,' is known as the theology of disruption. It is found within the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10 verses 25-37.

As you read what Jesus said, pay attention to how the Samaritan allowed his journey to be interrupted or disrupted.

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

In reply Jesus said: 

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 

A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  

So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

We live in an age of disruptive technologies. 

It seems like only yesterday when we recorded voices on cassette tapes and played movies on videos. Those markets have been disrupted, superseded by digital recording, and streaming online. The photography market has seen individual cameras disrupted by mobile phone cameras. Encyclopaedia Britannica has been disrupted by Wikipedia. The High Street retail sector is constantly under pressure, disrupted by online retailers like Amazon. 

Jesus identifies neighbourliness as God moving through interruption or disruption. In the Good Samaritan story, He calls us to live lives building in time to be disrupted. God moves through us permitting disruption.

The two men who missed their opportunity to demonstrate neighbourliness were religious leaders - a priest and Levite.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said:

"We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and cancelling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks… It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. They think they are doing God a service in this, but actually they are disdaining God’s 'crooked yet straight path.'"

He continues:

What if we learned to experience interruption differently? 

Rather than viewing all outside interruption as the enemy of productivity and creativity, what if we viewed our lives as communicative vessels for the sake of the other? 

Bonhoeffer’s point is this - the Christian’s job is to listen to God's voice and care about what He says above all else.

True productivity therefore is not just about being preoccupied with our own agendas, rather about making time to go out of our way to serve others. 

As Matt Perman observes, “Everything is given to us by God for the purpose of serving others” 

The Good Samaritan continued about his business but knew the heart of God lay in him ‘putting himself out’, making the time to go out of his way to serve another.

COVID19 is full of opportunities to demonstrate neighbourliness.

It’s not just in the Ramsay Street cul-de-sac that “everybody needs good neighbours”!

Let us consider entering this week with these five words of Jesus ringing in our hearts: "Go thou and do likewise".