"Love the neighbor God drops in your path" Trinity 13 2025

14. September 2025

Trinity 13

Luke 10:23-37

He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Lk 10:26–29).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

We do not get to choose our neighbors. We do not select our co-workers as though from a menu. God places them in our lives, and His command is clear: love them. But we do not. Like Cain, we ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And we already know the answer—we just don’t want to hear it.

We play favorites. We greet those who greet us. We lend to those who can repay us. We show kindness to those who will not make life too messy. But when the broken and bleeding lie in the ditch, we cross the street. We look away. We tell ourselves it isn’t our business. We scroll past the suffering, we walk past the needy, and we pretend we didn’t see. That’s what sin does. It numbs you. It makes you blind.

Jesus does not let us escape so easily. He tells the story of the man beaten and left for dead. The priest saw him and passed by. The Levite saw him and passed by. But a Samaritan—despised, rejected, an outsider—stopped. He bent down, poured oil on wounds, lifted the half-dead man, carried him, and paid for his care. And Jesus says: That is your neighbor. Love him.

Your neighbor isn’t just your buddy who covers your shift at work or the cousin who remembers your birthday. Your neighbor is whoever God drops in front of your face. The stranger who bumps you in the grocery store. The driver who cuts you off. The co-worker who gossips about you. The addict who can’t sober up. The enemy who makes your skin crawl. Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). He calls them neighbor. Jesus says: That’s your neighbor. Love them as yourself.

And why? Because they belong to the same God who made you. The same hands formed them. The same blood redeems us. “Christ died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15). The random stranger in the store, the co-worker in the cubicle, the relative who grates on our nerves—Christ purchased all. Paul tells us we are members of one body “so that the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12:25). James calls this the royal law: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (James 2:8).

Yet we confess: this love is not in us. We care for ourselves. We protect ourselves. We feed our comfort and defend our pride. We nourish and cherish our own flesh, while despising or ignoring the neighbor God gives us. John speaks the truth: “Whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). We cannot claim to love God if we do not love the neighbor before our eyes.

And here’s the kicker: God’s not asking you to try harder. He’s not telling you to grit your teeth and fake it. Because you can’t. So where shall love come from? Not from our own effort. Not from forced politeness or empty gestures. We cannot create it. Love is not born in us. Love is given by God. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). Love is Christ crucified for you.

The only way you’ll ever love your neighbor is if God Himself pours His love into you. That’s why John says: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The cross isn’t just a nice story. It’s your life. It’s the blood of God’s Son poured out for you, the blood that cleanses your hatred, your apathy, your selfishness. It’s His blood shoved down your throat at the altar, poured into your veins with His body and blood. It’s His forgiveness drowning your Cain-heart in baptism and raising you to new life.

You don’t love God. You don’t love your neighbor. But Jesus does. Jesus loves His Father completely, and Jesus loves His neighbor completely. And then He dies for every failure of yours. He dies for the times you looked away. He dies for the grudges you still carry. He dies for the names you called people in your heart. He dies for your selfishness, your coldness, your Cain-heart. And in exchange, He gives you His heart. His Spirit. His love. Paul says in Romans 5: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” You don’t love by nature. You love by gift. And the gift is Jesus.

And that is why Christ gives us His Church. In this Church, Jesus pulls the knives from our backs. In this Church, He stops the bleeding we have caused and the bleeding we have suffered. In this Church, Jesus restores what the world has taken: forgiveness, life, salvation. Here, He tells us who we are when all other voices try to rename and enslave us. The world demands performance, possession, and submission. Christ declares: child of God, forgiven sinner, beloved neighbor.

In this Church, the unwanted and unloved are welcomed: the broken, the addicted, the angry, the ashamed. Here Christ remakes us. He rebuilds us. He resurrects us. By His Spirit, He closes the cracks where demons lurk. He seals what the devil would break. He secures what hell would claim. That is why we gather. Here Christ feeds us with His body and blood: “Take, eat; this is my body… Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:26–28). Here, our Cain-hearts are transformed into Abel-hearts. Here, His Spirit creates the love that we cannot produce.

And then He sends us out. Out to neighborhoods, workplaces, and streets. Out into the world where the broken still lie in the ditch and the proud still cross to the other side. We do not choose our neighbors. We do not choose our co-workers. God gives them, and His command remains. Loving our neighbor costs. It wounds. It bleeds. But this is the very love Christ has given to us. He was mocked, beaten, nailed, and forsaken. He bore our sins and still named us “neighbor,” “brother,” “sister,” “mine.”

So now you live as if it’s true. Because it is true. You are loved by God. You are forgiven by Christ. You are filled with the Spirit. And now, when God shoves someone into your life—family, friend, stranger, enemy—you don’t ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” You already know the answer. Yes. You are. Because Jesus is. And the blood that poured down His side, the blood that fills the chalice, the blood that washes you clean—that’s the same blood that binds you to your neighbor. You are members of one body. One family. One Church.

So go. Love the neighbor God drops in your path. Not because you’re strong. Not because you’re good. But because Jesus is. And He hasn’t failed you yet.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin