Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
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Luke 10:25-37
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘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.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins 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.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
This is one of the parables of Jesus that has become part of our common language. Everyone knows what it means to call a person a “Good Samaritan.” There are even laws on the books in lots of states that are called “Good Samaritan laws” – they protect people who stop to help strangers against liability if their help somehow goes wrong.
But the familiar parable is only the last half of this reading, and it seems to me that the first part is pretty important, too.
That first part of the passage relates a conversation between Jesus and a Jewish theologian, who’s identified as an “expert in the law.” That meant he was an expert in the Hebrew scriptures – in what we call the Old Testament – and especially in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Luke says this particular expert in the law approaches Jesus because he wants to test him with a theological question. The guy asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life.
As you might remember, Jesus often responds to questions like this by asking a question of his own, and that’s what he does here. Jesus asks the expert in the law what the scriptures say. And the man answers his own question; he says we are to love God with our whole self and love our neighbor as ourselves.
This guy’s answer is so familiar to us that we tend to read on without giving it much thought. But maybe we should stop and think about this a little.
Lots of people who think of themselves as Christians think that ‘being saved’ is a matter of believing the right doctrines, of believing the right things. You go to heaven if you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, if you believe that he died for your sins, if you believe that you’re a sinner, if you believe the Bible is God’s word, etc.
And all those doctrines are definitely important – doctrines help us learn and pass along what the Bible teaches us. We Presbyterians have a whole book of doctrines – a book of statements of belief that we call ‘The Book of Confessions.’ But being in relationship with God isn’t just about accepting doctrines. It’s about growing into a deeper and deeper relationship with God in Jesus. The more we experience God’s love, the more precious that relationship becomes to us. And our thankfulness moves us to love God more and more in return.
So just believing the right doctrines isn’t all that matters. What those doctrines lead you to do matters, too. Which brings us to this parable about the Good Samaritan.
It seems to me that Jesus is making the point here that in God’s eyes, everyone is our neighbor. That includes even those who look down on us or think badly of us. Even those we might be inclined to reject or condemn. The Jews regarded the Samaritans as unclean. As heretics. As ‘ethnically impure.’ But the Samaritan in the story demonstrated love for a person in the territory of the Jews – and he became an example of the way of life Jesus wanted his followers to imitate.
I think Jesus also intended this story to show us something about the kind of love he was calling us to show – agape love, to use the word from the Greek New Testament. That agape love involves sacrifice. It comes with a cost. The Samaritan sacrificed his time, his efforts and his money to help the injured man. It cost the Samaritan something to be a neighbor to the injured man.
And in addition to sacrifice, I think Jesus wanted us to see that real love of neighbor can often have an element of risk to it. Look at all the risks the Samaritan took: The injured man on the road could have been a dangerous criminal only pretending to be hurt. Or he could have been the bait in a trap, with bandits waiting to ambush anyone who stopped to help him. So the Samaritan took a risk in terms of his physical safety. And what’s more, the Samaritan also told the innkeeper he would pay whatever it cost to take care of the man. He agreed in advance to pay all charges the man ran up. So he took a financial risk, too.
Finally, the Samaritan helped out without asking whether or not the wounded man deserved it. That’s a real challenge for us, because there are always people around us with their hands out. And we try to figure out whether each one is someone who really needs help, or someone who would just rather beg than work. So we tend to be afraid that if we let ourselves be ‘easy marks,’ we’ll give it all to the con artists and there won’t be anything left for those who are truly needy and deserving of help.
I wish I had a simple black-and-white rule for you on this, but I don’t. I’m not even close to being wise enough. It seems like we should exercise a little discernment to try to avoid being ripped off or supporting addictive behaviors and so on. But when we’re confronted with a neighbor in need, we can’t allow ourselves to use the rationale that “they don’t deserve it” as an excuse not to help them. As followers of Jesus, it seems to me the only way we can avoid being ripped off from time to time is not to help anyone. And obviously, refusing to help is not what Jesus had in mind for his followers.
So as we said, this is such a well-known parable that it’s easy to overlook some of the deeper meanings it carries. But like many of Jesus’ parables, the more you think about it, the more it has to teach.
Let’s pray. Lord, we pray that you will draw us into an ever deeper and more loving relationship with yourself, and that you will inspire us into greater and greater love for our neighbors. Help us to open our hearts to those we might once have rejected, and to love sacrificially, even when there’s a risk involved, remembering that in Jesus, you loved us in a very risky and sacrificial way. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 81 and 116; Micah 5:1-15; and Revelation 9:1-12. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.org, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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