Re:Verse passage – Luke 10:25-37 (day three)
“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same.’”
If Jesus points to the socially unacceptable person as exemplary, then the world really has turned upside down. Jesus even concludes the parable by enjoining his questioner to aspire to the character of the reprehensible individual. Two millennia of cultural distance have diluted and dulled the immediacy of the truly ridiculous nature of Jesus’s story structure. To learn from someone you do not like is hard. But to be urged to learn from someone who is spiritually, morally, or theologically offensive to you is a bridge too far. Does God really view the world in such a radically different perspective? Can you actually be that wide of the mark? Perhaps it’s fair to say that if Jesus isn’t shocking you, you aren’t listening.
