Luke 10:25-37
The Good Samaritan. One of the most well-known parables of Jesus. I believe many of us can retell this parable without referring to the Bible. I also believe there is a much deeper meaning than a simple reminder about our ethical obligation to assist people in need.
Let us look at the story. Immediately we are introduced to a lawyer. He poses a question to Jesus as a ‘test.’ “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In the typical fashion of the rabbis, Jesus answers the question with one of his own. “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
The answer comes back, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Good answer. And Jesus agrees. But now the lawyer does something that all of us do from time to time – in good lawyerly fashion, he looks for a loophole. “And who is my neighbor?” In other words, “OK, Jesus, I understand I am supposed to CARE, but what are the limits of my caring? When can I quit?” And here Jesus tells his famous story.
The first person to whom we are introduced is the poor traveler. He had taken the road from Jerusalem to Jericho which was notoriously dangerous. It descended nearly 3,300 feet in 17 miles, running through narrow passes at points. The terrain offered easy hiding for the bandits who terrorized travelers. This unfortunate fellow had been stripped, beaten, and left for dead. Jesus’ audience that day knew how easily it could happen.
But, it’s going to be OK because help is on the way and the help is a priest. If anyone could be expected to stop and help, it would be a priest. But, this priest is not only not coming over to help; he is passing by on the other side. No reason is given. Some have suggested that, as a priest, he could fear ritual defilement with a corpse, but truth is if a priest on a journey found a corpse, he had a duty to bury it. Perhaps it was fear. Those who beat the man in the ditch might be lying in wait to beat him as well. Whatever reason, “He passed by on the other side.”
The next person who comes was a Levite…, an “assistant” priest. The first one was an aberration. THIS one will come through. Right? As the text has it, “he came to the place and saw him, [and] passed by on the other side.” Here goes another hero!
Now what? By normal storytelling conventions, we can expect we are about to meet a third character who will break the pattern created by the first two. In the context of our current parable, the expected sequence would be a priest, a Levite, and then…TA DAH!… our hero will be an ordinary Israelite who will come to the rescue even when the highly religious figures of the Temple fail to do so. The story would have an anti-clerical edge to it along with the reminder that love of God AND NEIGHBOR are commanded, BUT character number three is a Samaritan.
The GOOD Samaritan! (You know… the GOOD Samaritan!) Nowhere in the Bible, will we find the words “Good” and “Samaritan” next to each other. For those folks who first heard this story, the phrase “Good Samaritan” would have been an oxymoron.
Why such depth of feeling? The hostility between Jews and Samaritans was hundreds of years old. It went back to the time of the division of the nation into the Northern and Southern kingdoms – Samaria came to be identified with the North, Judea, the South. Following the Northern Kingdom’s fall to Assyria in 721 BC, exiles from many nations settled Samaria creating something of a melting pot, no longer purely Jewish.
Move forward a hundred years or so. Now it is the turn of the Southern Kingdom to fall – this time the conqueror was Babylon, and, as was the custom of the day, the people were carried off into exile to prevent any uprisings in the occupied territory. The few Jews left in Samaria were considered no threat in that regard, so they were left in Palestine. Seventy years passed, and the exiles were allowed to return. The Samaritans were ready to welcome them back, but the returnees would have none of it – they had intermarried with gentiles making them “half-breeds.” They had perverted the race. They had also perverted the religion. They interpreted the Torah differently than the southern Jews. By the time of Jesus, the animosity toward Samaritans was so great that some Jews would go miles out of their way to avoid even walking on Samaritan soil. The hatred between Jew and Samaritan in Jesus’ day was at least as deep as the feeling Jews and Arabs have toward each other today.
Enough history. But necessary. After all, if Jesus were just trying to say we should help the helpless, supply the needs of the needy, he could have talked about the first and second men who passed by and the third one who stopped and cared for the half-dead guy in the ditch. If Jesus were also making a mockery against religious establishment, we would expect the third man to be a layperson – an ordinary Israelite – in contrast to the professional clergy. If Jesus were illustrating the need to love our enemies, then the man in the ditch would have been a Samaritan who is cared for by a loving Israelite. Of course, that is NOT the way the story goes.
Just as the priest and the Levite, the Samaritan sees the man, but instead of distancing himself, he comes closer. As the text has it, “when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine [oil to keep them soft, wine to sterilize]. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins [two days wages] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’” Not an insignificant amount, not lavish either, but enough to do the job.
The story is over. Jesus has responded to the lawyer’s question about the limits of neighborliness with his story and now turns the question back to the lawyer: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
And the answer, “The one who had mercy on him.” Amazing, isn’t it? The concept of a GOOD Samaritan is so distasteful that the lawyer cannot bring himself to even speak the name.
This is why Jesus is a great storyteller. I believe Jesus did not want his hearers to identify with this generous care-giver. No good Jew could identify himself/herself with a Samaritan. No good Jew would not want to be like the Priest or Levite either, so the only character left with which to identify would be the man in the ditch. Now Jesus concludes, “Go and do likewise.” What? Be the guy in the ditch?
Perhaps that is not so mind-boggling as we might think. We never hear if this poor victim recovers, but my assumption is that he does. That being the case, what would the effect have been on him that he had been rescued by a Samaritan? One would presume that it would forever color his view of Samaritans. For that matter, one would presume that it would forever color his view of the world’s victims. There would be less callousness, less inclination to lay blame for getting into such a fix in the first place, less temptation to “pass by on the other side.” If Jesus’ story had gone on any longer, I would bet that this poor fellow, from that day forward, became a better neighbor to the rest of his world than he would have ever dreamed possible.
On several occasions when I have thought about the story of the Good Samaritan, I have wondered about the rest of the story. What effect did the charity have on the man who was robbed and beaten and taken care of? Did he remember the cruelty of the robbers and shape his life with that memory? Or did he remember the nameless generosity of the Samaritan and shape his life with that debt? What did he pass on to the strangers in his life, those in need he met?
Has anyone ever helped you? My brothers and sisters in Christ, has anyone ever helped you? “Go and do likewise.” Amen.
Go in peace, love and care for one another in Christ’s name,
and may all the blessings of God be upon you
- may God the Creator renew your life
- may God the Savior dwell within you,
- and may God the Spirit guide animate all your thoughts and actions
both now and in the world to come. Amen
