The second observation is this. Our tendency is to say bad priest, bad priest, you walked by. But maybe that priest's rabbi, maybe he said listen, it is a better thing for you to walk away instead of touching a person bleeding out. Why? Because the priest would have been going to offer sacrifices. If he touches the guy bleeding out he becomes unclean, which costs him his ability to offer sacrifices, so maybe that priest, if he touched the guy it would have cost hundreds of people their forgiveness that day - so it's totally plausible that the priest walked by. He says okay, the second guy's a Levite and the Levite walks by too. Now here's the question: if you're a Pharisee do you identify with the Levite? No, same reason. Levites were priests. Levites were Sadducees okay. The Levites believe that the Torah only was the scripture. The Pharisees were about two per cent of the population who believed that the Torah and the prophets were the scriptures. They were actually - I know this goes against some things - the Pharisees were actually the progressive, visionary thinkers. They were the ones who would look at our Bible and go that's plausible.
The priests of that day and the Sadducees would have said no, you've added too many books. Ezekiel, no way. Isaiah, no way. Joshua, no way. No, Matthew, no, no, no. It's got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, that's it see? So the Levite walks by, same reason right. So here Jesus sets him up so good. In a Hebrew parable when you're answering a question, if you're not the first and you're not the second then you're automatically the third, so the Pharisee would have been on his toes - oh! Oh! Who am I? Who is my neighbour? Jesus says the third guy is a Samaritan. [Laughter] The Samaritan actually is the kind one. He picks him up and he takes care of him and he does all this stuff, and then Jesus asked him the following question. He says who acted like a neighbour? The Pharisee can't even say it, he can't even say Samaritan. He says the one who had mercy. Jesus said that's right, go and do likewise, you'll inherit eternal life.
So what's He saying? A couple of things, light and heavy. The first thing He's saying is this, is that when you're faced with a situation of touching someone dying or walking away to offer sacrifice, He says the light sin is always having mercy. The heavy sin is leaving someone for dead. Later He said this: I desire mercy more than sacrifice. In other words if you're act of mercy takes away your ability to offer sacrifice, I understand your heart. That was the light and heavy part. What was the other part? So in this parable what is Jesus' definition of a neighbour? Who does He tell the Pharisee is his neighbour? The Samaritan. In other words Jesus is saying your neighbour is the person you hate the most. He's saying if you want to inherit eternal life you have to grow in your kingdom mentality to where you can actually love the people you think you hate. He gives him a follow up tool to do that. He says the way to do that is don't ask how restrictive can we make this box. Don't ask questions like how restrictive can we make this box. Here's a better question to ask. A better question to ask is how can I be a neighbour to someone else? How can I actually make someone else's life better?
What's He saying? He's saying you're getting so caught up in the light you're missing the heavy. You're getting so caught up in who's my neighbour that you're missing all your opportunities to be a neighbour. Listen to me. When the spirits and the demons and the enemy of our soul, the things that can control our thoughts in a negative way and can sort of drive behaviour, listen, they typically are very subtle. They don't come in [unclear 00.35.15]. They come in very subtly and they get a foothold and a stronghold. One of the primary ways they do that in the church is this, is they make the church lose sight of the heavy in favour of the light. They take an organisation and they get everybody in the organisation so focussed on the light that they lose sight of the heavy. The get so focussed on questions like who's my neighbour? Well let's apply it to what we're doing. They get so focussed on questions like what songs are we singing? Is our lighting okay? How's this? How's that?