Latest / Eurasia Region Podcast / S2-E14 | Everyday Eurasia |  Martin Glendenning

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S2-E14 | Everyday Eurasia |  Martin Glendenning · Eurasia Region Podcast

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  This week we will join the NCM team from Eurasia.
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  Today we will listen to Martin Glendenning.
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  Martin is originally from Iowa in the United States and
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  currently lives in Zagreb, Croatia.
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  He serves as the Central Europe Field NCM Coordinator,
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  supporting compassionate ministry initiatives across
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  Central Europe. My name is Martin Glendenning,
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  and I currently serve as the NCM Coordinator for the Central
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  Europe field, and I want to talk to you a little bit today about
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  the simplicity of compassion. The verses I'm going to read are
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  from Matthew chapter 22, verses 35 through 40.
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  To give some context, Jesus is talking with some of the
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  religious leaders who are trying to trick him with some of their
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  questions. And so one of them, an expert in
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  religious law, tried to trap Jesus with this question.
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  Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law
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  of Moses? Jesus replied, You must love the
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  Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all
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  your mind. This is the first and greatest
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  commandment. A second is equally important.
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  Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the
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  demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.
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  In other words, all the commandments that you've been
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  given, everything you've read, all the scriptures in the the
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  words that were given from God to Moses and told to you.
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  It's all based on these two key principles.
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  And I'm going to summarize it very shortly as love God, love
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  people. Everything else falls into this
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  category. And so even though sometimes
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  things can get complicated, and I'm reminded to go back to this
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  verse and these words of Jesus that say, hey, the thing you
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  really need to focus on, the things that are most important
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  that in all these other laws and all these other rules are based
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  on is loving God and loving people.
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  And so whenever it gets a little bit confusing or complicated or
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  you're not sure which way to go, you can always come back to this
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  question, OK, but what is the most loving thing I can do
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  towards God and towards people? And This is why I talk about the
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  simplicity of compassion, because even in a complicated
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  world, we can come back to these simple truths that Jesus is
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  asking us to love God and to love people.
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  Now this passage, we find it in Matthew, but we find it in some
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  of the other gospels as well, but under a little bit different
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  context. In Luke, it's a similar story,
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  except it isn't Jesus who gives the love God love people
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  response. It's another teacher of the law,
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  another religious person standing up to question Jesus.
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  And he asked, how do I inherit eternal life?
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  And instead of answering the question, Jesus turns it back to
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  him. And he says, well, you've read
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  the scriptures, what do you think?
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  And the man gives the same response that Jesus had given in
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  Matthew, where he says, love the Lord your God with all your
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  heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind, and
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  love your neighbor as yourself. And the thing that makes this
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  passage a little bit different, in this encounter that Jesus
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  has, the man goes one step further and says, OK, we know
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  that that's actually been in Deuteronomy.
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  We know that almost verbatim, this love your neighbor as
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  yourself is almost verbatim in Deuteronomy.
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  And so the man says, OK, but let's go a step further.
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  You know, like when Jesus asked that question, well, what do you
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  think? It was almost like, you know how
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  in Sunday school we tell kids, if you don't know the answer,
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  just say Jesus because that's probably the right answer.
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  Well, in this context, it was probably, hey, when you don't
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  know the answer, love God, love people, that's probably the
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  answer. And so even though that may have
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  been the Sunday school answer, this man goes a little bit
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  further and says, OK, but who is my neighbor?
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  And then Jesus goes on to tell the story of of the Good
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  Samaritan. And I think we all know this
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  story. If you don't, you can go back
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  and read it in Luke chapter 10. But in that story, basically
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  it's a Jewish man who gets attacked by robbers and left for
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  dead on the side of the road. And the other Jewish leaders
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  that walk by him who are supposed to be the ones that
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  stop and help him don't. But then it's the Samaritan.
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  The Samaritan is the one from the other group that is, is seen
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  as as not holy. They're seen as unclean.
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  They can't even worship in the temple because they're, they're
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  seen as having even a different religion.
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  And at the end, Jesus said, and who was the neighbor?
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  Well, it was the man that showed kindness.
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  In our context today, when when we talk about the other, we all
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  have people that we would recognize as or at least
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  culturally as the other and other nationality and other
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  ethnicity, maybe in a different social class.
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  We we can all name who that other is.
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  And the answer of who is your neighbor?
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  Who are you supposed to love as your neighbor?
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  Love your neighbor as yourself? Well, the answer basically comes
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  back as anyone, even the one who's different than you, even
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  the one that you're supposed to not get along with.
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  That's who we're supposed to be neighbors to.
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  And as we think about what it means to love your neighbor as
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  yourself, I think it's also important that we know where to
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  start. To fully understand how you
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  should treat your neighbors yourself, you would need to put
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  yourself in your neighbor's shoes.
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  You can't fully understand what it would mean to love your
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  neighbor without knowing your neighbor.
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  In other words, if we were in their shoes, how would we want
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  to be loved? To do that, it means listening.
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  Diedrich Bonhoeffer said said this.
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  He said the first service that one owes to others in the
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  fellowship consists in listening to them.
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  Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the
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  beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen
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  to them. Diedrich Vonhoffer's response to
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  this verse about loving God and loving people was that in order
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  to love God and in order to love people, we need to be listening.
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  As you go about your day today and throughout your week, I'd
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  ask that you consider this verse in this context and remember
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  that compassion is really a simple act.
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  Every day. It's a choice that we want to
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  love God and we want to love people.
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  And as we hear in the story of the Good Samaritan, of course,
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  that means we love everyone, even those that are different
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  than us and especially those who are in need.
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  Let's pray. Father, we thank You that You
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  have given us some simple instructions that we can follow
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  to be more like You. We thank You for you being with
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  us. We are thankful that you listen
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  to us and that You love us and God.
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  Now we ask that we would be able to extend that love to others
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  and that we would truly listen. That we would listen to You,
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  That we would listen to Your guiding and nudges in our life
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  as the Holy Spirit leads and guides us.
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  And we pray that you would help us to listen well to others and
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  listen because we love, because You first loved us.
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  And Father, we would ask that you open our eyes today and
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  throughout the week to those that You would have us love and
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  be a good neighbor too. It's in Your name we pray these
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  things. Amen.
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