30 Days On The Mount

observed, ‘It settles a hundred difficult points…It prevents t he necessity of laying down endless little rules for our conduct in specific cases.’ Jesus was the master at capsulizing complex ideas into memorable sayings. The Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke best illustrates this saying of Jesus. The priest and the Levite representing the Law, were repelled by the condition of the unfortunate Jewish man who was beaten, robbed and left for dead and did nothing to help him. The Samaritan felt compassion for him…soothed his wounds…and bandaged them. He put the man o n his own donkey…took him to an inn…took ca re of him. He even offered to pay the innkeeper any additional costs, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here. (Lk 10:33 -35) All inequities and costs will be repaid at Christ’s return. The Samaritan did what you would have them do to you, had he been the victim. This pro-active principle of love is the most powerful force in the world. ‘The negative confines us to the region of justice; the positive takes us into the region of generosity or grace, and so embraces bot h law and prophets.’ xiv The Old Testament focused on the balance of justice in human relationships: “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for and eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’” (Mt 5:38) Jesus takes his disciples into the positive realm of divine love, the power of the Kingdom of God. If the two poles of a magnet are the same (negative to negative) the two magnets will push away, or repel, from each other. The law, though pure and spiritual, was like the negatively charged end of a magnet that is placed next to the

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