Luke 10:25-37
25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27He answered, “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 neighbor as yourself.” 28And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” 29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
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I love that this story (and its interpretations over 2000 years) have as many twists and turns as the road from Jerusalem to Jericho itself. The cast of characters is unique enough including a smarty-pants lawyer with an attitude, a savior who will not be rebuffed, two church officials (a preacher and a minister of music, don’t you know) who ignore a social problem, a Samaritan with a servant’s heart and a checkbook, and a dying man—a victim—lying lame on the side of the road. When you add the scandal of circumstance and the irony that the least-likely rescuer is, indeed, the one who gives aid you get quite the sordid tale.
Let’s start with the smug lawyer. He trades questions with Jesus, perhaps looking to trip the savior up, and after establishing that the greatest commandments from the law are to love God and to love others, he throws a zinger that he thinks will get Jesus frustrated. But Jesus answers the hard question like he always does: with a parable.
Jesus tells of a downhill journey on the treacherous road between Jerusalem and Jericho. There’s lots of room for trouble on that road. It winds its way steeply downhill and curves abound. It’s the perfect place for an ambush. On the day that Jesus describes, a man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Probably not an unusual occurrence.
Three folks come by, the first two, as the story says, “pass by on the other side.” These two are men of God, a priest and a Levite. We’re left to speculate as to why the men didn’t stop to help. Jesus doesn’t say anything about them. Maybe stopping would make them late for their gathering in the synagogue. Maybe they were afraid that touching the man would render them unclean and therefore unfit for temple worship. These ideas are perhaps invalidated by the fact that, if the men were going “down” then they were, in fact, traveling away from Jerusalem and they’d already been to temple that day.
Maybe they considered that the man himself might be a thief lying in wait for a good-natured soul of whom he might take advantage. This road was known as a “Bloody Pass,” after all. Martin Luther King, Jr. once speculated that the men may have been in a hurry to get to their destination so that they could organize a “Jericho Road Improvement Association.” King said, “Maybe they felt it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.” Whatever the case, or whatever their excuse, the holy men didn’t stop, they didn’t help, and the man was left to suffer and die alone.
And then, someone did stop. He was a foreigner. He was someone who was unwelcomed because of his race, his background, and his upbringing. He was a man of Samaria. Anyone who witnessed the Samaritan approaching the dying man might think that the Samaritan’s intention was to finish the man off—such was the hate between the two peoples.
However, in the midst of all that hate and all that unjust logic emerged a kind of love and compassion that’s hard to imagine—even among us learned modern Christians. The passage says that the Samaritan “was moved with pity” and rightfully so.
What the Samaritan saw lying there wasn’t just a man who’d been beaten up and had his valuables taken away. No, no. It was worse than that. The man had been stripped. Humiliated. His nakedness was an insult to already conceived injury. Artist depictions of this event show the man strewn upon the back of the strong animal that traveled with the Samaritan, the victim’s exposed body and injury laid bare.
We’re told that the Samaritan bandaged the man’s wounds. That he used antiseptics and healing oils. That he, simply, took care of the man, spending his own money on medicines and lodging for this stranger. The next day, he saw to the man’s ongoing care and left money for that purpose. And, as if he hadn’t already done quite enough, he promised to come back to do even more at a time not too far in the future. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?
And at the end of this story, we’re left with the question that Jesus asked the lawyer. Which one of the passersby demonstrated neighborly behavior to the man on the side of the road? Well, the lawyer answers correctly, saying, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus says to the lawyer, and to us, “go and do likewise.”
Perhaps on the day in question, the others who passed by had tucked in the back of their heads a key question that anyone traveling along the Jericho Road that day might have asked. It’s the question I used to ask when I’d pass by homeless people when I lived in New York. It’s the question that Martin Luther King, Jr. posed in his sermon almost fifty years ago. “If I stop to help this man what is likely to happen to me?” However, the Samaritan man was willing to consider, “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
What’s special, what’s unique, what’s refreshing about this man—this Samaritan man—is that he was willing to stop alongside a dangerous road—a road with curves and bumps, thieves and robbers—and risk his own safety for the benefit of another. And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” Amen.
MicahBlog Vol 1.5. Copyright 2010, Micah Ministries. All Rights Reserved.
