Luke 10:25 – 37
We've heard the parable of the Good
Samaritan so often that we probably figure we understand it – your
neighbor is whoever needs something you can give him or her. That's
probably not wrong, but it's only scratching the surface. There are
several interesting things in this story that bear looking at.
First, when the scholar of the law asks Jesus what seems to be a
perfectly reasonable question, we almost overlook the fact that Luke
says he did this to test Jesus. And to emphasize that, the scholar
calls Jesus “Teacher” which is what others call him when they are
about to test him; it's sarcasm. The scholar of the law knows the
answer to the question he is asking; after all, we just heard Moses
tell the Israelites that they know how to please God – keep his
commandments and statutes. And when Jesus asks the scholar how he
reads the law, the scholar gives the answer any good Jew would give,
and any religious Jew today would say in his prayers – Love God
with your whole heart, being, mind and strength, and your neighbor as
yourself. He knows the answer to his question, and Jesus agrees.
The hostile lawyer, however, now reaches the point where he thinks
he's going to trap Jesus. He asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Notice
that almost any answer Jesus gives could be met with an objection.
If Jesus says 'everyone” well, big deal. That doesn't help in a
practical way. If Jesus says “Jews”, well the Israelites were
commanded to treat aliens living among them no different than their
fellow Jews. I think you ca see that if Jesus selects a category of
people who qualify as neighbor, the lawyer, who knows the scriptures
backwards and forwards, can object and so prove that Jesus is not
much of a teacher. And that's why Jesus tells the story.
Who do you identify with? Not the
priest, not the Levite; most of us see ourselves as the Samaritan.
We mostly believe that if we were walking along that road, we'd stop
to help. But it doesn't take much to realize that's not what we do
in real life; we do cross the road when we see a homeless person
coming toward us pushing a shopping cart. We turn our eyes away from
the man with the cardboard sign standing on the street corner, and
drive off feeling a little guilty. We'd like to be the Samaritan,
but most of the time, we are not.
Now you all know that Samaritans and
Jews were enemies. They disliked each other even more than Nancy
Pelosi dislikes Donald Trump. They couldn't see anything good about
the other person. And at the end of the story, when the lawyer is
forced to admit that the Samaritan is the neighbor, he can't even say
the word. And I think Jesus wants us to see ourselves not in the
Samaritan, but perhaps in the person by the side of the road, the one
who has been beaten and robbed and left for dead. We don't know if
that person is Jewish or Samaritan or pagan, we know nothing except
that he is in desperate need. And if it were you and I we would not
ask whether our helper was a supporter of Trump or a member if ISIS
or a man who liked to dress up in women's clothing. We'd take the
help from anyone who would reach out.
The other thing about this story is
what the Samaritan does. Obviously, he binds up the wounds and
renders first aid and transports the person on his own animal.
That's good. But the Greek, as I learned when I studied this
parable, says that he takes the man to a five star hotel. That's
what the word “Inn” means here – it's different from the “inn”
that Jesus' parents were turned away from, which was sort of a motel
6. And the people listening to Jesus would marvel at that and the
fact that the inn keeper was given two silver coins and the promise
of more; two silver coins were basically two day's wages, which would
be the equivalent of 240 dollars if you were making 15 dollars an
hour, and most of us here make more than that. So the Samaritan not
only saves the man, but goes way beyond the minimum; as one
commentator said about the Samaritan, “he preferred the stranger to
himself”.
The priest and the Levite look at the
man in the ditch and say to themselves, “If I stop to help, what
might happen to me?” And they had a legitimate concern. Because
one of the tricks then and now if you want to rob someone out walking
on a country path or driving down a side road is to create a scene
that looks like someone is in distress; and when someone stops to
help, rush out and beat them up and take their stuff. It still
happens. And another legitimate concern is that the priest and the
Levite would become ritually unclean by stopping and rendering aid,
and they had things to do in Jerusalem and probably that was on their
mind as well. But the third thing is that they probably said to
themselves that there was probably someone coming along on this busy
road who wouldn't have all these obligations; maybe there was a group
of people traveling together – I say that sometimes when I see a
homeless person or a beggar on the street corner. Aren't there
plenty of places they could go and get some food and a shower and
basically a new start in life? After all, I am always being asked to
contribute to this place or that place, this ministry or that one.
But the Samaritan asks a different
question. If I don't stop to help, what will happen to him? And I
think that's the last point to make out of this story. If I am the
person on the side of the road, desperate for someone to come along
and aid me, the one who comes along is Jesus Christ, who goes far
beyond the bare minimum, who looks at me with compassion and trades
his life for mine. The people who heard the story of the Good
Samaritan from Jesus' lips may not have thought of this at the time
He told the story, but I suspect they may have seen the story as
prophetic later on. We are all the helpless victim by the side of
the road, and Jesus is the Good Samaritan.
