As I prepared for my sermon today, I was
struck by the sheer amount of resources available for the story of the Good
Samaritan. Apart from Christmas and Easter, I suspect that more sermons have
been preached about this parable than anything else in the New Testament. Something
about this story strikes a chord with us.
I believe that one of the reasons that it
resonates with us so deeply is that all of us can see ourselves as at least
one, if not more, of the characters in the story – the man set upon by thieves,
the priest and the Levite who pass by, or the Good Samaritan.
Let’s try looking at this story from each
of these points of view.
First, consider the Samaritan himself. Keep in mind that Jesus told this parable in
response to a question. Luke tells us that a lawyer asked Jesus a question.
Now, keep in mind that in Jesus’ time, a “lawyer” was not an attorney. A lawyer
was an expert in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. It would be more
accurate to paraphrase this is a Biblical scholar or theologian or religious
leader.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
he asked Jesus. And Jesus, in good Jewish fashion, answered his question with
another question, “What is written in the law?”
Do you know the story about the
rabbinical student, frustrated because his teacher always replied to his
questions with more questions, said, “Master, why do you always answer my
questions with a question?” To which his teacher said, “So, what’s wrong with
questions?”
Anyway, the scholar gave Jesus a
perfectly satisfactory answer, “You shall love God with all your heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” “You got it,” Jesus said, “Do
that and you will have eternal life.”
Now, the scholar’s next move may seem to
be nitpicking. He had another question, “But who is my neighbor?”
It is said that the comedian W.C. Fields
asked for a Bible on his deathbed. Fields was known to be a heavy drinker and
not known for his interest in religion, so his friends asked why he wanted a
Bible. “I’m looking for loopholes,” he replied.
Was the lawyer looking for loopholes when
he asked Jesus who his neighbor was? I don’t think so. If we are told that
eternal life depends on loving our neighbor as ourselves, then it is only
reasonable to ask Jesus to define his terms. What does he mean by love? What
does he mean by neighbor?
One of the most provocative
interpretations of this parable comes from the late Margaret Thatcher. Something
that is not well-known about the late Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s former prime
minister, is that she was a sincere Christian. Her father was a Methodist lay
preacher, and she herself did some lay preaching while she was an undergraduate
at Oxford. She became a member of the Church of England when the Conservatives
won the general election of 1979, partly because as prime minister, she would
be involved in appointing the bishops of the Church of England.
One of Thatcher's favorite biblical
stories was the parable of the Good Samaritan. This strikes some as very odd
because she drastically reduced government spending on social services. But
Thatcher's interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan was very
different from most interpretations.
In a talk she gave at a church in London,
Thatcher made the provocative comment that “No one would remember the Good
Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.”
It’s not a bad point, but I think Thatcher
missed something. What she missed was the significance that Samaritans had to
first century Jews.
Jesus was telling a story about who is
our neighbor and what it means to love. And what really shocked the scholar was
that Jesus designated a Samaritan as the one to act as a neighbor.
When Jesus had finished telling the
story, he asked the scholar, “Which of these three was neighbor to the man who
fell among thieves?” “The one who showed him mercy,” the man replied. He couldn’t
even bring himself to say the word “Samaritan.”
The Samaritans were a group of Jews who
long ago had intermarried with non-Jews. They differed from the mainstream of
Judaism on many important points. So the Jews despised and looked down on the
Samaritans. But Jesus makes a Samaritan the hero of his story, the one who
shows us how to be a neighbor, how to do those things that will bring us
eternal life.
Fifty years ago Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., launched his campaign to desegregate businesses in Birmingham, AL, and
force them to hire black sales clerks.
White people in the deep South deeply
resented the civil rights movement. They resented even more the way that they
were portrayed in northern newspapers. They correctly pointed out that they
knew many black people, that black people had worked for their families for
generations, that they treated black people with kindness and respect. They had
a point. Most of what they said was correct.
The problem wasn't that they weren't
treating black people with kindness. The problem was that they did not want
black people to enjoy the full dignity of human nature.
Jesus told this parable partly in order
to make the scholar question his assumptions about Samaritans and to make us
question our assumptions about those whom we regard as inferior to us in some
way. The question is not so much, “Are we willing to reach out and help those
in need?” Of course we are. But I don’t think that’s all that Jesus was saying.
The more difficult question is, “Is there someone that we look down, someone we
would not want to acknowledge as our neighbor?” And at times, all of us have
felt that way about someone.
Now consider two other characters in this
story: the priest and the Levite.
Consider for a minute the priest and the
Levite. It’s easy to get worked up about them because here are two professional
religious figures who see a man, bloodied and beaten, lying in a ditch, and
they pass by on the other side of the road.
Many years ago, Clarence Jordan, a
renegade Southern Baptist preacher, retold this story in a humorous way.
Once upon a time, he said, a man was
going down from Atlanta to Albany, and a bunch of robbers beat him up and stole
his money. In a little while a revivalist drove by in his big Cadillac. He had
to be in Albany to preach a revival at the Assembly of God’s Holy Love in
Christ that evening. He saw the man in the ditch but he was afraid that he
might get the seats in his Cadillac dirty if he stopped to help him, so he just
slowed down and said, “God bless you brother,” and sped on by.
A little while later, the man who was
leading the singing for the revival also drove by. He saw the man in the ditch
but was afraid he would be late for the revival. He didn’t stop either but did
sing a chorus of “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” as he drove by.
But let me say a good word for the priest
and the Levite. The priest and the Levite were on their way to Jerusalem to
perform their duties in the temple. Contact with the man’s blood would have rendered
them unclean and unable to perform their duties in the temple. They did not necessarily
do anything wrong by avoiding contact with the man in the ditch.
But I suspect that Jesus had a subversive
reason in including them the story. He was asking his listeners to evaluate
their priorities. What is more important? Observing the letter of the law or
caring for someone in need?
It was a good question then, and it’s a
good question now. When have we hid behind a screen of rules instead of
reaching out to someone in need?
Finally, consider the man in the ditch.
It is easy, though uncomfortable, to see ourselves as the priest and Levite
passing by someone in need. It is also fairly easy to think of times when we
have acted the part of the Good Samaritan, going out of our way to help
someone, spending our own money for the sake of someone who has no claim on our
kindness. But it is probably rather difficult and uncomfortable to think of a
time when we have found ourselves in the ditch.
But I think that may be the very point of
this story.
The 4th c. theologian St. Augustine
provocatively retold this story like this:
Adam himself is the man who went down
from Jerusalem to Jericho; Thieves are the devil and his angels. Who
stripped him, namely; of his immortality; and beat him, by
persuading him to sin; and left him half-dead, because in so far as
man can understand and know God, he lives, but in so far as he is wasted and
oppressed by sin, he is dead; he is therefore called half-dead.
Samaritan is Jesus himself; The binding of the wounds is
the restraint of sin. Oil is the comfort of good hope; wine the
exhortation to work with fervent spirit. The inn is the
Church, where travelers returning to their heavenly country are refreshed after
pilgrimage.
Notice that most of the parable is taken
up with the actions of the Samaritan: bandaging the man’s wounds, treating them
with wine and oil, lifting him on to his animal, taking him to the inn, paying
the innkeeper, and so on.
Jesus is not giving us instructions in
first aid; he is inviting us to let him care for us; to feel him soothe our
wounds with the oil of his love, cleanse our sins with the sharpness of the
Spirit’s fire, to let him carry us into the presence of the Father’s love. Or
as one of my colleagues says, to let him check us into the Hotel Compassion,
all expenses paid.
“Before we ‘go and do likewise’ or go and
do anything at all, we are meant to know the care and compassion of the
stranger who finds us abandoned, lifts us up and provides hospitality for us.
The actions of the Samaritan open a window for us to recognize nothing less
than the care and compassion of God. The parable tells us who we are, tells us
of our deep need for God’s love. And that was Augustine’s point. The traveler
is Adam, that is to say, he is each and every one of us; the Samaritan greeted
with suspicion and even hostility is Christ; the inn is the church where broken
travelers may rest and be refreshed.” (Patrick Willson, “Who we are,” The Christian Century, July 26, 2007)
We don’t really need this parable to tell
us that we are responsible for the well-being of others. We already knew that
we were meant to be our brothers and sisters’ keepers. What we need is to know
that when we were in the ditch, when we had been beat up by life, when we had
been abandoned by everyone, that God sent a Good Samaritan named Jesus to bind
up our wounds and take us home.
