Luke 10. 25 – 37
Fr Alex
That’s got to be one of the best-known stories in the New Testament, I reckon. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of the bible probably knows what is meant by a ‘good Samaritan.’
The Samaritan lends his name to plenty of worthy organisations. Loads of hospitals in the United States, especially, are named after the Samaritan from our story. There is of course the big charity in this country, The Samaritans; there’s another global charity called Samaritan’s Purse, that helps those suffering from war and poverty.
Apparently in Australia you can even find a charity called the Good Samaritan Donkey Sanctuary, which I guess does what it says on the tin.
It crops up from time to time in political speeches – George W Bush, Tony Blair, even our late Queen, have all used the image of the Samaritan in public messages.
And what’s meant by a ‘good Samaritan’ in all these cases is pretty much the same: helping others in their need, regardless of their nationality, or race, or religion. Overcoming barriers of difference, and promoting tolerance for others.
These are all really good things, of course, and I’ve no doubt Jesus would approve. But is this what he meant in this provocative little parable, this morning? I think that, as always, there is something deeper going on.
There are a couple of problems with the usual moral reading of this story. The Samaritan can come to represent the enlightened Christian who has learned to break free of prejudice, whereas the priest and Levite represent backwards Judaism, caring more about ritual purity than compassion for others.
Jesus certainly had plenty to say about the religious leaders of the time, and those who had forgotten how to live in God’s way – but nearly always, he calls them to remember the teachings of their own scriptures. They were already commanded repeatedly, throughout the Hebrew scriptures, to love both the neighbour and the stranger – they didn’t need any new teaching about it.
The other problem is one that applies to all of Jesus’ parables, and that is reducing them to a neat set of moral principles. Jesus’ ministry was about far more than just encouraging us to be kind to each other – it was about the salvation of the human race: making God known to us, and bringing us closer to God. All the good things that the ‘good Samaritan’ has come to mean are secondary to this; they are the lived response to what God has done for us in reconciling us to himself in Jesus Christ.
So what is Jesus trying to say in this parable? Like all parables, I think the best way in is to consider what they show us about what God is like, in Jesus. To see them almost as Christological statements.
I think this is borne out by the introduction to the parable. “A lawyer stood up to test Jesus.” He’s not merely testing him on his moral theology: he’s testing Jesus’ claims about himself. The lawyer wants to know the way to eternal life: and that is what Jesus is all about, that is what Jesus is, the way to eternal life.
Jesus evades the trick of the question by turning it back on the lawyer, who really knows the 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 neighbour as yourself.”
These are a combination of texts from Deuteronomy and Leviticus; the first part about loving God is from the Shema, the foundational text of Jewish life, but it’s often quoted with the second part about loving your neighbour. Indeed, Jesus says elsewhere that these are the two greatest commandments, on which hang all the law and the prophets. They must be held together; you cannot fulfil one without also fulfilling the other.
And in answering the lawyer’s second trick question, “Who is my neighbour,” Jesus is teaching so much more than simply ‘be kind to everyone’ – he is teaching what it means to love God “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.” He is teaching something about who God is. He is telling this parable about himself.
And where do we find Jesus in the parable? The man who fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, went away, leaving him for dead. Jesus, who was treated like a robber himself: at his arrest in Gethsemane he cried out, “Have you come out, as against a robber, with swords and clubs to take me?” Jesus, who was beaten and whipped; whose garments were stripped from him; who was abandoned by all and left for dead on the cross.
He was rejected by his own people, but tended to by outcasts like the Samaritan – by tax collectors and prostitutes and the poor, who anointed him and tended to his broken body.
That is what God is like, in Jesus. This is what he does for us, in sending his own Son to undergo such things for us.
But Jesus is not just there in the beaten man. He is also there in the one who cares for him. Jesus is the one who does not look away when others ignore suffering; he comes to us, he is moved to pity for us, and tends to us in our pain. He gives of himself without counting the cost to ensure our wellbeing – “I will repay you whatever more you spend,” he says; I will give whatever it might cost me, even my life.
Jesus is the one who tends to our wounds and at the same time takes our wounds upon himself. He came to us from heaven, and we treated him like a stranger. But he came so that we might be strangers to God no longer – and not even neighbours to God, but something much better. We can become Christ’s brothers and sisters, children of God.
This is how we love God, and this is how we come to eternal life: by seeing Jesus in the suffering and in the acts of mercy, and going there with him. “Go and do likewise.” May that be our challenge and our joy, today and always. Amen.