If I were to say simply the words, good Samaritan, I bet most of you could recite the story back to me with all the details. And perhaps, even, if I were to ask you what the gist of the story is, you could come up with some good answers. Were we doing a sermon the base community way (which, by the way, the brothers at Weston Priory in Weston Vermont model), I would stop talking and let the question flow… ‘What is the story of the Good Samaritan about?’ Maybe I should...!
Moses wrote, ‘This law is not beyond your strength or beyond your reach. It is not in heaven. It is not beyond the seas. No, it is very near to you. It is in your mouth, it is in your heart.’
The law of which Moses speaks and which appears in the story of the Good Samaritan is one which Rite One goers hear every Sunday: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. The lawyer recites these verses to Jesus when asked what is written in the law? Jesus says he has answered correctly. But there is more to merely answering a question.
And that is what the rest of the story seems to be about. The rest of the story is about what it means to live the answer of loving God and neighbour from within, from the heart, not just from the mind.
Moving from understanding intellectually the law which demands that we care for and love our neighbour to living this law out in our hearts is part of our life-long journey. It is not something we do overnight. But over time we understand what it means to care for our neighbour because doing so is what we are called to do as baptised persons.
It seems strange that a story that would have been so threatening to Jesus’ listeners would have become one of Christianity’s favourites. It seems strange that a story that appears only once in the gospels, in the gospel according to Luke, should so capture people’s imaginations. But it has and, for a multitude of reasons, the story of the Good Samaritan clearly is one of the most well-known and popular stories of the New Testament.
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A lawyer, otherwise presented as a Torah expert, engages Jesus in a debate. Perhaps the conversation is a test of Jesus’ credibility. Richard Swanson points out that most interpretations of this scene focus on the seeming self-justification of the Torah expert. However, he is not attempting to justify himself. He is attempting to find out how he can be ‘strictly observant’ to the dictates of the Torah. In this sense, a person who is observant, ‘aims his or her whole life so that it adds up to a witness to the stable and orderly love of God.’ Moreover, the lawyer is not seeking to justify himself, he wishes to be justified, that is, to recognise God’s grace as a free gift.
Lastly, Swanson reminds us that this scene takes place between two Jews who are familiar with a Jewish text. In this case, then, ‘be justified,’ ought to be translated as ‘be strictly observant,’ meaning to ‘live a life that is shaped by Torah, a life which points to the goodness of God and to the possibility of safety. ‘For Jewish faith the issue of “justifying himself” does not come up because Jewish faith is, and has always been, quite clear that God’s gracious choice comes first.’ As Swanson succinctly notes, ‘This changes everything.’
In this case, the Torah expert is seeking a proper interpretation, halakha. To do so is a honourable activity and not one of antagonism. So his first question is pretty simple: What do you do to inherit eternal life? Jesus understands that this is an easy question and throws the question back to the Torah expert: What do you find in Torah? The Torah expert answers with the second half of the Shema from Deuteronomy 6: ‘Hear O Israel, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind, with all your soul… and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ He has answered correctly. Realising he is dealing with a sharp person, the Torah expert next asks, Who is my neighbour? Now the conversation is morphing into a catechism class or a philosophy class. Obviously the neighbour is someone who lives nearby. But what about those who don’t live nearby but who are still neighbours? So that is where Jesus launches into the story.
Again, remember this conversation takes place between two Jewish characters. The people who walk by the injured man have a ritual obligation to avoid corpse-uncleanliness. They make a conscious choice based on the value system they know. The choice is painful but easy. For the stability of the world, they cannot risk defilement by touching this now unclean, apparently dead man.
Then Jesus inserts a masterful complication: ‘Along comes a Samaritan…,’ referring to yet another unclean collection of people. Surely the Torah master knows he has met his match. When Jesus asks him ‘who was the neighbour?’ he can only answer as he does, ‘the one who showed compassion’. And Jesus can only answer, ‘Go and do likewise’ because in doing, the Torah expert will show himself to be an observant Jew. (1)
Coming then at this gospel with the understanding that the Torah expert was not trying to trap or trick Jesus but was truly trying to understand better how he could live according to God’s desire for stability in the world, the question remains: Who is our neighbour? And how do we respond to our neighbour?
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The story is not just about showing compassion to the ‘unclean’ and outsider — it is pure and simply about showing compassion. Who has shown compassion? Is it
the priest who befriended people in jail while serving a three-month sentence for civil disobedience for a cause in which he deeply believed
the congregation that reached out to an unknown woman undergoing extreme chemo in a hospital 400 miles away from her home by bringing to the hospital a huge icechest and various containers, proceeding to produce an entire feast for her and the next day bringing over three blankets to keep her warm
the man who stopped on a hot highway to offer a stranded motorist water for her car’s radiator that had boiled over
people who spend a Saturday hosting a community luncheon to those who haven’t had anything to eat for several days
the two who scrambled over the rubble of the collapsed house in Port au Prince the night of January 12th to bring a flashlight to their neighbour because she was outside in the dark on the ground, unable to move because of her injuries
Who has shown compassion? I am sure you can generate your own examples.
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Hymn 602, Chereponi, otherwise known as ‘Jesu, Jesu,’ a Ghanaian melody from the early 1960s, defines well for us who our neighbour is. In the second verse, the original text says:
Neighbours are rich folk and poor,
neighbours are black, brown and white,
neighbours are nearby and far away.
Then the hymn tells us how we should respond to them:
These are the ones we should serve,
these are the ones we should love.
All are neighbours to us and you.
Finally, the hymn states how we are transformed:
Loving puts us on our knees,
serving us though we are slaves,
This is the way we should live with you.
The chorus reiterates all these themes:
Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love,
Show us how to serve the neighbours we have in you.
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The only thing that needs to be added is to remember that we never know when the person we help is Christ in front of us. If we respond to each person as Christ, for each person abides in Christ and Christ in them, then we, too, will find ourselves unexpectedly reaching out to others we never expected… and likewise, being cared for by unexpected people. If we do that, then we will find that the plumb line of compassion in our lives will always hang straight. And in that compassion, we will find the energy and presence of the kingdom of God come near, as we love God and neighbour alike.
END NOTE
(1) Richard W. Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Luke (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2006), 162-67.
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