Wednesday, 27 March Luke 10:25-37
Written by Dr Graham Leo. ©2019.
The parable of the Good Samaritan as it is popularly known is probably one of the best known parables of Jesus. I suspect people with no church connection know this and the Prodigal Son parable better than just about any other biblical story. I'd like to help you into it, today, from what may be a new perspective.
Let’s start with the title. It ought to be obvious to blind Freddy these days (or Freya who is visually challenged, if you prefer) that even talking about a ‘good’ Samaritan is an inherently racist thing to do. It implies very strongly that the Samaritans, as a bunch, are a pretty low lot. The one in Jesus’ story just happens to be a good one, for a change.
This ought to make us wonder whether the parable’s well-embedded title needs to be re-thought. Is he ‘good’ in a way that others in the story (let alone other Samaritans) are not? Is that the point? I will suggest to you that it is not the point at all.
Let’s read Luke carefully. He told us that he wrote it carefully; we should at least return the compliment.
His telling begins with ‘an expert in the law’ who stands up to test Jesus. Note that he is not an honest seeker. He is following the standard lawyer’s dictum that you never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. You only ask questions to make the other fellow look foolish or guilty. And he was certain he knew the answer to this one.
Jesus responds by asking him a question. He asks for the expert’s opinion. And Jesus hones in on just one word in his answer. Neighbour.
Anyone familiar with the ancient world knows that the idea of being nice to other people just because they are human like us, was an utterly foreign concept at that time. Larry Siedentop makes this clear in his book, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism. You were born to be a slave or a peasant or a noble. You treated people accordingly. Hurting, defrauding, enslaving, even killing people who were not in your social level, and who didn't worship your gods, was just what you did.
But the Jews were different. Over against the entire ancient world, they held a concept which no other nation had developed – the concept of a neighbour. They didn't always practise it well – if at all, to be honest, especially where foreigners were concerned.
God had given this law to his people. Love your neighbour as yourself. Many people think that Jesus invented this rule, but that is wrong. The expert was quoting Leviticus 19:18.
To be brief about it, the story is not just about being good. It is about the thoroughly Jewish idea of neighbour. The priest and the Levite were not acting as neighbours. They didn't help the traveller, who was, presumably, a fellow-Jew. They just walked past the man in trouble. Nothing new so far. Anyone could have told this story. But then Jesus introduces the wild card. The one who stops to help is an outsider. A Samaritan.
Now note this. This road was known to be full of robbers and murderers. That’s why Jesus could tell it – everyone knew that this was a risky journey.
But the road was not in Samaria, nor even heading towards it. What chance would a Samaritan have if he were found to be kneeling beside a Jew who was lying half-dead and who had been stripped and robbed? Probably the same chance that a black man would have had in Mississippi in 1960 if he were found kneeling beside a white man who was lying half-dead and who had been stripped and robbed.
For this Samaritan to act as he did was not merely being ‘good’. It was an outrageous, dangerous, foolhardy act of pure courage. It was a wild, radical act of responsive love of the God who had made them both. Furthermore, it was a denial of everything that being a Samaritan involved. Samaritans hated Jews; Jews hated Samaritans.
Not only did he help the injured man, he put him on his donkey, thus increasing enormously the risk of being misunderstood by any other Jew who might come along. Then he gave the innkeeper an open cheque to look after the man. He had no way of knowing whether he would be greeted with a friendly welcome, or by the local police, or a vigilante group of the man’s friends when he came back.
Being a neighbour is not just being good, or kind. That is a gross underplaying of this story. Being a neighbour is to break down all the boundaries of borders and separations.
The expert in the law wanted to know how to GET something, namely, eternal life for himself. Jesus told him how to GIVE something: namely, love to another person from whom you should not expect anything in return.
The idea that Jesus or Christianity delivered a new moral or ethical code is one which is widespread in society. It is helped along by misreadings of this parable. But it is not true.
‘Love God and love your neighbour’ was firmly part of the Jewish ancient law, from Exodus and Leviticus. What Jesus did was to enable us to live into that ethic in ways that had not been possible before. The kingdom of love that he overlaid onto our old world enables us to draw down power from above to habitually do that which was only occasionally possible before.
The expert in the law knew well how to love within his ancient code: love the people who are like you, and whom it won't cost you to love. And as a result, God will reward you, because he likes your sort of people too. Jesus was telling the expert that the man he loved to hate was a better God-follower than he was.
Jesus re-defined an ancient code: Who is your neighbour? Anyone whose need constitutes a claim on your love. Anyone? Yes, anyone.
The story is not about an especially-good Samaritan. It is about a Samaritan who knew what a Jew should have known and had refused to know because of his spiritual pride. It is about an outsider who did what the insiders should have done. It is about an atheist who does what the Christian should have done. It is about the new Kingdom overlaying the old kingdom and bringing its new values into it, in shocking and startling ways. It is about loving God first, which enables us then to love our neighbour.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, please help me to recognise those who are my neighbours – those whose need constitutes a claim on my love – and help me to respond to them as you would. Amen.
