The Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37

 

            One of the great stories coming out of the disaster that is Hurricane Katrina is the abundant compassion, care and generosity toward the victims in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The stories pour in from around the country of ordinary Americans going out of their way to help.  And I know that many of you gave financially; many of you gave material goods; many of you worked tirelessly to help a family relocate; I trust all of you lifted up the victims in prayer.  It’s amazing to watch God’s love being outpoured!  These stories are what Jesus had in mind when he told the Parable of the Good Samaritan. 

 

It is not going too far to say that this Parable of the Good Samaritan is a huge part of the American psyche that has led us to show care the way we have.  Few, if any, made direct reference to the Good Samaritan when we set about to help, but the parable is so ingrained in our national identity, so well known to us, that even when we overlook it, it guides us, for we know it so well. We know, for instance, that the story is about helping others in need. We know that we have “Good Samaritan” laws about helping others in an emergency because of this parable. We know that the parable tells us we are not to discriminate as to who we help.  We know that to refuse to help is to enact a kind of denial of our faith. We know all these things.  Yet, Jesus’ parable is, perhaps, too well known; we know it so well we often overlook some of its more subtle provocations.

 

(choir sings) First born of Mary, provocative preacher, itinerate teacher, outsider’s choice;

Jesus inspires and disarms and confuses whoever he chooses to hear his voice.

 

The most obvious layer of this parable is the ethical.  That is, it tells us that we are to be like the Good Samaritan.  “Go and do likewise,” Jesus told the expert in the law (and us).  But there are some interesting peculiarities in this passage.  For instance, have you ever noticed that Jesus teaches here that we can earn our own salvation?  Sure, I know that good Protestant theology says salvation comes by grace alone, but Jesus is pretty clear: if we love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves, then we will live.”  Now, before we get too excited, let’s remember that we have to love God and neighbor perfectly, all the time, and without fail.  You and I both may be loving, but we still need Jesus for our salvation.

 

The expert in the law wasn’t sure about this.  He wanted to justify himself.  Now, that term, “justify,” is a religious word that means “save” or “proclaim innocent.”  The expert wanted to bring about his own salvation; he wanted innocence to come from his own self rather than as a gift of God.  Thus the expert in the law asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  Now the expert in the law, as a first century Jew, would have had a pretty narrow definition of neighbor.  The conventional wisdom of the day said that one’s neighbor was confined to those Jews who obeyed the law.  Gentiles weren’t neighbors.  Samaritans weren’t neighbors.  Jews who disobeyed the law weren’t neighbors.  So when the expert in the law asks, “Who is my neighbor?” he thinks all he has to do is love people like himself.  Well, we all do that, don’t we?  He thinks that, maybe, he could pull this off; maybe he can justify (save) himself.  But then Jesus tells a parable about how a neighbor is one who helps anyone in need, whether they are like us or not.  It’s easy to help the friend who looks like us, talks like us, dresses like us.  Not so easy the guy with the cardboard sign on the corner of I-25 and Highway 50.

 

To me, the most striking thing about this parable as ethics is the way the expert in the law summarizes the law.  The expert is quoting the summary of  Rabbi Jesus (c.f. Matthew 22:37-40) who he evidently has heard before.  Every rabbi had his own summary of the law; Jesus’ summary appears to be uniquely his own, or at least no where else in Jewish literature is this summary quoted.  What makes it different, in part, is that Jesus’ summary cites two Old Testament verses – Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 – out of order.  The normal way of doing things in Jesus’ day was to quote Scripture sequentially, which would mean Leviticus would come first.  That Jesus reverses this order means he is making a special point: Love of God comes first, then love of neighbor.  Without the love of God, love of neighbor is impossible.

 

We see this in many Good Samaritan efforts toward the Katrina victims.  The first wave of stories in the media was about the outpouring of love from around the country.  But a second wave of stories is now appearing on the internet and in the traditional media.  These second wave stories are about how many of the recipients of aid are ungrateful.  Those giving the aid, and writing the emails making the rounds, are disgusted by the entitlement attitudes of the victims and are being turned off to helping.  Respectfully, I understand the sense of disgust – the entitlement attitude is in no way healthy or acceptable – but these folks are missing the point.  We do not help the Katrina victims primarily because of the victims; we help because of our love of God.  Without God’s love first and foremost in our hearts, we cannot love our neighbor.  The reason this is true is that, quite often, our neighbor is not lovely.  If we focus on our neighbor, we will see many reasons not to help.  Which is why Jesus says, first and foremost, all love is about God; it comes from God and returns to God.  Focus on God who is lovely, and then and only then, you will be able to love your neighbor.

 

(choir sings) First born of Mary, provocative preacher, itinerate teacher, outsider’s choice;

Jesus inspires and disarms and confuses whoever he chooses to hear his voice.

 

            As we move to an even deeper level of this parable, we see Jesus engages the expert in the law in a politically charged theological debate.  For those of you of a certain age you will recognize this reference, Jesus is an Abbie Hoffman toward the Jewish political establishment.  For the younger generation, Jesus here is MTV, challenging the status quo at every turn.

 

            In the parable, Jesus sets up a scenario about a priest and a Levite, both of whom work in the Temple in Jerusalem; we might think of them as a minister and elder, representatives of the religious establishment.  Ken Bailey, a New Testament scholar who has lived much of his life in the Middle East and who will be our Theologian in Residence October 14^th-16th, gives us a sense of the cultural background that would have influenced the priest and the Levite.

 

The priest is riding his donkey from Jerusalem, where he has spent the last two weeks working in the Temple, down the 17 mile road to his home in Jericho, when the priest happens upon a “half-dead” man who has been stripped and beaten.  The term “half-dead” is a technical, rabbinic term meaning the man is unconscious.  For the priest, this is a problem. 

 

Why?  Because the way one determined where another is from is by clothing and speech, in the same way we might distinguish between a California surfer dude and a West Virginia hillbilly.  But the man is naked and unconscious so the priest has no idea if the man is a Jew.  This is a problem. 

 

Why? Because the law said that if the man was a “son of your own house,” i.e. a good Jew, then the priest was obligated to help.  But the law also said that if the man was dead, then the priest would make himself unclean by getting within four cubits, (about a body length), from the man.  This is a problem. 

 

Why?  Because then the priest would have to return to Jerusalem, sacrifice a red heifer, which takes about a week, and the whole time he would be without pay. And even if the man is a Jew, if he’s alive but dies along the way, which is a distinct possibility, the priest would be unclean and would have to rent (rip) his very expensive priestly robes, which also would cost him money and would violate the law that says one should not destroy expensive property.  So, what does the priest do in the face of possibly losing a week’s salary (or more), for someone who might not even be a “son of his own house”?  The priest does precisely what you and I would do.  He rides on by.

 

            Now, let’s not blame the priest.  Jesus doesn’t.  The force of Jesus’ argument is not that the priest is a bad person but that the priest lives in an intolerable situation.  What Jesus is saying is that the law, as interpreted by the religious leaders of the day, prevented this priest, and by inference the Levite also, from being good.  What I mean by saying Jesus is a radical like Abbie Hoffman or MTV is that he is speaking out against the most basic assumptions of his society. What Jesus is saying is that any religion, any political structure, any society that systematically works against compassion must be reformed. If a person must break the law to be compassionate, the law must be changed.

 

(choir sings) First born of Mary, provocative preacher, itinerate teacher, outsider’s choice;

Jesus inspires and disarms and confuses whoever he chooses to hear his voice.

 

            As we move to the deepest level of this parable, we hear Jesus giving us a hint of his own identity.  The early church interpreted this parable christologically; that is, they saw it as lifting up Jesus as the Christ, the Savior of the world.  If the early Church was correct, this interpretation, which is called a Christological interpretation, (literally: words about the Christ), would have Jesus be the Good Samaritan!  Now, why would anyone think of Jesus as the Good Samaritan or the Good Samaritan as conveying a sense of the Savior?  Consider.

 

            What does the Good Samaritan do for the man?  He, first, binds up the man’s wounds, and, second, pours on oil and wine.  Oil and wine were commonly used by the ancients as medical treatment in what we would call first aid.  But think about it: the Good Samaritan is out of order!  Why bind first, then pour.  It would be like me putting a band aid on Matt’s knee and then telling him, “Now go wash it up.”  It makes no sense…unless we know the prophets!

 

            In the book of Hosea, God is said to be the One who will bind up the wounds of Israel to restore the nation to himself (Hosea 6:1).  God will bind.  God will save.  With this in mind the order makes sense.  Jesus is not talking about medical treatment but about God’s salvation.  The oil and wine, then, are Jesus’ way of foreshadowing the anointing of the Holy Spirit – (oil) – and the sacrament of Holy Communion – (wine).

 

            What does the Good Samaritan do for the man?  The  Good Samaritan reverses the neglect of everyone who has come before in the parable.  Whereas the priest refused to put the man on his animal, the Good Samaritan puts the man on his.  Whereas the Levite refused to provide medical treatment, the Good Samaritan binds up the man’s wounds.  Whereas the robbers stole all the man’s money, the Good Samaritan pays all the man’s bills.  Indeed, we see here a strong foreshadowing of salvation.  In Jesus’ day, an innkeeper could commit a customer to slavery if that customer did not pay their bill.  So when the Samaritan not only pays for the man to stay the equivalent of two month’s at the inn, but also promises to return to relieve any other debt, it is Jesus’ way of saying to us, “All that you have ever done wrong, I paid the debt.  All you will ever do wrong, I will pay the debt. I set you free.”

 

            This is an amazing story!  Think about it.  Jews and Samaritans hated each other, kind of like Raider fan and Bronco fan, only worse.  And what does Jesus do?  Jesus likens himself to the Samaritan who takes a Jew down to the Jewish city of Jericho and brings him to the inn.  To get a sense of comparison here, imagine a U.S. soldier who found an Iraqi insurgent along the side of the road and drove his Humvee into the Sunni mosque in Fallujah to take care of the injured insurgent.  What’s going to happen to that GI overnight?  That’s right.  In the same way, the Good Samaritan, Jesus, gave his life in order to save the life of the half-dead man.

 

            If Jesus is the Good Samaritan, do you know what that makes you and me?  That’s right.  We’re the half-dead man, lying naked and unconscious along the side of the road.  Do you now see what, precisely, you must do to be saved?  Do you now understand the full requirement of what you must do, what you must be, in order to be saved by Rabbi Jesus?  That’s right!  Just lay there and let him save you.  Can you do that?  Will you do that? 

 

Will you allow Jesus to save you today?

 

(choir sings) First born of Mary, provocative preacher, itinerate teacher, outsider’s choice;

Jesus inspires and disarms and confuses whoever he chooses to hear his voice.

 

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