Luke 10:25-37: Parable of the Good SamaritanHere’s a situation we’ve all encountered: We’re walking down the street. Minding our own business, right? Maybe we’ve been shopping. Maybe we’ve just had a great lunch. Mmh. . . now that was some pastrami. . . Our stomachs gurgle just thinking about it. Or maybe we’ve done none of these. Maybe we’re simply taking a walk. I mean, come on! Who needs to consume things to have a good time? We’re just out here to enjoy the sunshine. Well, whatever we’ve been doing, we’re on our way home. We’re satisfied. We’ve had a great day. Now, it’s time to go home and relax.
Only wait. Who’s that? We see someone ahead of us who’s coming closer. We don’t think too much about it. But we notice him. After all, he does look a bit different than the rest of the people on the street. His brown hair is long and greasy. We wouldn’t say that he has a beard exactly, but he hasn’t shaved in a long time. In fact, his scraggly, unshaven facial hair looks a bit uneven. He’s wearing a ragged flannel shirt. “It’s too hot for that,” we think. His stonewashed jeans are dirty and he’s limping a little. . .
Now we don’t think too much about it. But we notice him. “Hmm, that’s sad” we think. Our mind shifts to the rest of the day. We think about our favorite t.v. show. It’s coming on in an hour! And just as we imagine sitting back in front of the tube with an ice cold glass of lemonade, we notice the man again. Our eyes suddenly catch his. We didn’t plan that. It just happened. “Look down!” we think instinctively. “He’s trying to make eye contact with us!”
“Hey, can you spare some change?”
Can you spare some change? That’s a simple question. But in an instant, our neurons start firing and our mind starts racing through a myriad of ways to answer the question. In one split second, we’re having a long conversation with ourselves.
“Well, I have a $5 bill. Maybe I should give him that. Wouldn’t that be the Christian thing to do?”
“But wait a second. I don’t even know this guy! What if he’s just going to take my five dollars to the liquor store and cash in? Or what if he buys drugs with it? No, no, I better not. . .”
“There are plenty of agencies that can help him. Maybe my five dollars would be better spent there.”
“But how do I know that he’s going to waste my money? Shouldn’t I take the risk anyway? What if he’s really hungry right now? No agency is going to help him in the next hour. What would Jesus do? Yeah, yeah. . . I think I’ll give him the money.”
“Oh wait. My $5 bill is in my wallet. What if I pull out my wallet and this guy jets off with it! I better not.”
“Or, I know! I don’t even have to give this guy money! He looks like a pastrami kind of guy! I could buy him a sandwich.”
“But wait a minute. I’m not his Mommy! Wouldn’t it be humiliating for me to accompany this guy just so he can get a bite to eat? Shouldn’t I at least grant this guy enough dignity to choose where he eats?”
“Geez, I don’t know. . .”
This entire conversation occurs in no time at all. “Um, sure,” we say. We fumble about and give the man five dollars. We did it. We answered the question. Time to go home.
In a sermon years ago, I heard someone describe a typical scenario just like this one.1 And he made an observation about the aftermath. Our conversation with ourselves isn’t usually over when we walk away. We’re still asking ourselves questions. We ask, “Well, did I do the right thing? Did I do what God would want me to do? Was it right for me to give the money? Did I meet my obligation?”
Meeting the obligation. This is something we think about often – not just in this scenario but in many scenarios. What’s the right thing to do in this situation or in that situation? We constantly ask ourselves questions like these. We’re always calculating and shifting our ethical checklist. Scenario X. Hmm. . .let me see here. We look at our grid. Oh, of course, do this! Now, I’m obviously making fun of us. But we do think about obligations a lot. What are our obligations to people? After all, we all want to act ethically, and we want to feel like we’re ethical people!
Could it be that the lawyer in our gospel story was thinking just like we are? “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” What must I do? What’s the obligation? When do I know that I’ve done the right thing? We all ask variations of the lawyer’s question. Jesus asked him what’s written in the law, and that’s a question the lawyer probably felt pretty good about. After all, he was a law kind of guy. He gave the perfect Sunday School answer: “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” Ding, ding, ding! Right answer! Jesus seemed pleased with it. But the lawyer wanted to know what law’s implications are. What are the obligations behind loving your God and your neighbor? Come on, Jesus. Spell it out for me! Tell me how to form that ethical checklist! Help me know exactly what to do so I can leave feeling good about myself at the end of the day! Hmm. . . myself. Is that what this is about?
The scripture says that this particular lawyer wanted to justify himself. He wanted to know that he had met his obligation. “And who is my neighbor?” That’s an interesting question, isn’t it?. Maybe asking “Who is my neighbor?” is really another way of asking, “Who isn’t my neighbor?” How far to my obligations stretch? This far? This far? How far do I really have to go? When do I know that I’m off the hook?
And then Jesus told an absurd story. It wasn’t just surprising. It was disturbing. It was completely offensive. It crossed the line of social decency entirely. Now we can’t get there completely, of course, but we can try to put ourselves into the position of the first hearers.
Jesus told them that a man was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. His audience would have known that this was a dangerous road. Their ears would have pricked up just at that. It was an immensely steep road, and on top of this, anyone could be easily attacked there. And that’s exactly what happened to the man. He was completely violated by a band of robbers. Stripped. Beaten. Left for Half-Dead. This was a tragedy. It was a grave injustice. Jesus’ hearers would have known it. Perhaps, they would have felt it.
Now they may have known this road was dangerous, but Jesus’ story played their every expectation. They heard him say this: “Now by chance a priest was going down that road.”
“Oh, this must be the point of the story. Jesus had been asking about the law. The priest was responsible for that. He was a law guy too. The law instructs him help this man.”
But “he passed him by on the other side.”
“What? Jesus, that doesn’t make any sense. He’s a priest – a religious authority! Why wouldn’t he help?”
And then Jesus told them that a Levite came down the road.
“ Hmm. . .well maybe this guy will help.”
But he passed by the other side too.
“Now wait a second! A Levite? He was responsible for helping in the temple! What do you mean he wouldn’t stop? The law instructs him to help. Why didn’t he?”
And then, the bombshell. The offensive detail. A Samaritan came down the road, and when he saw the man, he took pity on him. He didn’t pass by. He bandaged his wounds. He put him on his own animal and took him to an inn. Then he left extra money there. “What? A Sa---!”
Perhaps Jesus’ first audience wouldn’t even let the word “Samaritan” form in their minds. The 1st century Jews and the 1st century Samaritans hated each other with no small intensity. Why did they hate each other so much? This rivalry stretched back oh, I don’t know. .. about 700 years! Can you imagine? 700 years? About 700 years ago, the land was split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Assyria attacked the Northern Kingdom, and when they did, they took many Jews away. They left the others behind. Then the Assyrians put other captives in the land, captives from all the surrounding territories they had conquered. The Jews who were still there married these foreign captives and started families with them. For this reason, the Jews in the South considered their progeny, the Samaritans to be “Half-Jews.” So, they hated them, and the Samaritans hated them back. It went both ways. They wouldn’t worship together. They wouldn’t eat together. You better believe they wouldn’t be caught dead – or in this case half-dead – with a Samaritan. What on earth was Jesus trying to do in this story?
And speaking of that, what on earth was the Samaritan trying to do? He was putting himself completely at risk. How did he know that some robbers weren’t going to come for him? How did he know that some other Jews wouldn’t see one of their own on his animal and think that he hurt this naked, beaten, half-dead man himself? He knew he wasn’t safe.
Society told him that he no obligation to this man. None whatsoever. And yet he took the risk. He took responsibility. He walked alongside this hurting, Jewish man. He accompanied him – not only literally, on the road itself – but in the pain itself. He took responsibility for something – someone -- whom society would have never told him he was responsible for.
Now Jesus had a question: “Which one of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The story was so absurd, so offensive, that the lawyer couldn’t even speak the true neighbor’s name. “Samaritan” couldn’t come out of his mouth. He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”
Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” Now let’s think about it for a minute. How offensive! What if the story went like this? A man was stripped, beaten, and left half-dead by a band of robbers. By some chance, a Presbyterian minister came and saw the man. But the minister passed him by. After all, the church bake sale was going on and there was a sermon to write. Then a nun came by. Well, she needed to attend to her prayers so she left him there. Then an Al-Qaida Operative came by, and when he saw the man, he had pity on him. He bandaged him, put him in his own car, and took him to a hotel. He left money for him at the hotel, and he went on his way. . Do we see how offensive this would have been?!? Which one of these was the neighbor? Would we have wanted to say, “Um, let’s see. . .the Al-Qaida Operative?” Of course not! And yet, we’re told, “Go and do likewise.” “Be like that Samaritan.”
“Go and do likewise.” How big is our circle? Who are we responsible toward? Our family? Our church? Our nation? What’s our obligation? See, we get caught up in obligation language. Let’s think about the scenario we started with. When a man on the street asks us for money, we leave asking ourselves plenty of questions. Did I do the right thing? Did I meet my obligation?
I’ll pass on what the pastor said in the sermon I heard years ago. Every time we ask ourselves questions like these, we’re really concerned with ourselves. We’re concerned with being justified. We want to feel good at the end of the day. But what if, with God’s help, we can learn to ask different questions – better questions – questions which aren’t centered completely on ourselves and our “right” status? Maybe it’s not ultimately about giving the money or not. Instead of walking away saying, “Did I do the right thing?” what if we asked, “How can I be bound up together with this man, this neighbor of mine, as I enter into the larger human struggle which is poverty?” We don’t go away lauding ourselves. We go away feeling called to live into the reality of who we are and Whose we are. We belong to God. That man belongs to God. If both of these things are true, we belong together.
The truth is, moments for responsibility usually find us. They grab us. It may be a man who asks us for money on the street. Or it could be a person who needs a safe place. We invite them into our church, or we invite them into the life of our family. It could be that news story that keeps getting our attention again and again, and now we feel like we can’t leave it alone. What if we’re called to take responsibility toward people whom culture and society say we aren’t responsible? What if we’re called to take responsibility toward people for whom we have no societal obligation?
“Now wait a minute!” we might say. ”We can’t do everything. If the circle gets wider and wider, aren’t we just putting heavier and heavier loads on ourselves? Where’s the grace in that?” No, that can’t be it at all. What we need is a paradigm shift all together! It’s not about doing more things for more people. It’s not about our obligations getting bigger. It’s not about obligation at all. It’s about being with each other. It’s about being for each other. It’s about accompanying people – not just doing things for them. It’s about accompanying them in their struggle. It’s saying, “Your struggle is my struggle too.” And we don’t do this on our own. We do it because God accompanies us! Isn’t that a huge part of what love is – accompanying one another? We’re stepping into what God is already doing with us and for us – with others and for others! What if we started to think about love in a new way?
“For God so accompanied the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
“Accompanying is patient. . . accompanying is kind. . . Accompanying keeps no record of wrongs. . . Accompanying bears all things.”
“Beloved, since God so accompanied us, we also ought to accompany one another.”
Accompanying. With each other. For each other. It’s not obligation. It’s orientation – orientation toward others. It’s about entering their struggle and calling it our own. That’s love.
“Go and do likewise.”
-Renee Roederer, Director of Evangelism and Young Adult Ministries at Pasadena Presbyterian Church
1 I am borrowing this illustration from Rev. Ben Johnston-Krase, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Racine, Wisconsin
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