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Sermon - The Parable of the Good Samaritan - 15th July 2007
St Alban’s 7:00am and 8.00 am
Readings: Amos 7:7-17, Psalm 82, Colossians 1:1-14, Luke 10:25-37
The Parable of the Good Samaritan is linked to Jesus’ exchange with the lawyer. The lawyer’s third answer to Jesus is intended as a trap. WE read that his original motive was to test Jesus, but Jesus had gained the upper hand by forcing the lawyer to answer his own a question and then challenging the lawyer to put his answer into practice. Attempting a rally, therefore, the lawyer posed a question that never failed to generate controversy. Like most societies, first century Judaism was organised by boundaries with specific rules regarding how Jews should treat Gentiles or Samaritans, how priests should relate to Israelites, how men should treat women and so on. Because the boundaries allowed for certain groups to establish their positions, power and privilege, maintaining the boundaries was vital to social order. It was a religious duty. The command to love one’s neighbour, as found in Leviticus 19:18, immediately prompted the lawyer’s question, which was understood to define the limits of required neighbourliness. Leviticus 19:34, for example, requires that an alien should be treated as a citizen: “Love the alien as yourself”.
The man set upon by brigands in Jesus’ story is noticeably undefined. Race, religion, region or trade does not characterize him. He is merely “a certain man” who by implication could be any one of Jesus’ hearers. Jesus’ audience no doubt imagined the man to be Jewish, but Luke’s audience may have assumed he was a Gentile. The point is that he is identified only by what happened to him.
The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notoriously dangerous. It descended nearly 900 metres in 27 kilometres. The road ran through narrow passes at points and the terrain offered easy hiding for the bandits who terrorized travellers. This unfortunate man had been stripped, beaten and left for dead. His assailants had left him with nothing to identify his status except his desperate need. The story is told from the point of view of the beaten man, who may be anyone, and the audience may easily identify with this innocent victim of random violence and brutality.
The story moves on and gives a signal of hope. “By chance” there was another traveller, one who might come to his aid. Moreover, that traveller is a priest, one who would be expected to help and he sees the man. The priest passes by on the other side. No reason is given, but in the end no reason justifies his neglect of the man in need. Could one really argue that pressing duties prevented him from stopping? If a priest on a journey found a corpse, he had a duty to bury it. The Levite’s response is described in the same terms. He too saw the man and passed by on the other side. In both cases, their seeing the man renders them guilty.
The story has reached its turning point. By storytelling conventions, the audience can expect that in a series of three, the third character will break the pattern created by the first two. Moreover, the expected sequence would be a priest, a Levite and then an Israelite. The story would then have an anticlerical edge to it. The ordinary Israelite would do what the priest and Levite would not.
Shattering all expectations, the third traveller is a Samaritan. The story does not pit an Israelite against a priest and a Levite. By making the hero of the story a Samaritan, Jesus challenged the longstanding enmity between Jews and Samaritans. The Samaritans were regarded as unclean people, descendants of the mixed marriages that followed from the Assyrian settlement of people from various regions in the fallen northern kingdom. By depicting a Samaritan as the hero of the story, therefore, Jesus demolished all boundary expectations. Social position, race, religion or region all count for nothing in the community of Jesus. The man in the ditch, from whose perspective the story is told, will not discriminate among potential helpers. Anyone who has compassion and stops to help is his neighbour. The alteration of the expected sequence by naming the third character as a Samaritan not only challenges those listening to examine the stereotype regarding Samaritans, but it also out-laws all stereotypes. Jesus shows that community can no longer be defined or limited by such terms. Social class identifies each the three on the road, but such labels do not identify the man in the ditch.
Like the first two, the Samaritan sees the man, but seeing him, he has compassion for him. The account of the Samaritan’s care for the beaten man stands in sharp contrast to the lack of detail in the first part of the story. Notice the action of the Samaritan, “He 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”. Pouring wine on a wound would help to cleanse it; the oil would keep it soft. The next day the Samaritan goes on with his business, but he leaves two denarii, which was the equivalent to two days’ wages, to pay for the beaten man’s care at the inn. It was not a lavish amount, but perhaps enough to provide for him through his recovery. If more is needed, the Samaritan pledges to pay it on his return. By his care for the beaten man, the Samaritan demonstrates that he is a faithful man. The innkeeper will not have to worry about whether he will repay his debt.
Jesus then turns the question back to the lawyer, and the lawyer is caught on the very question with which he intended to impale Jesus. “Which of these three was a neighbour?” The multiple choice question forces such a distasteful answer that the lawyer will not even use the word Samaritan. He says instead, “The one who showed him mercy”, but ironically his roundabout answer provides an accurate description of a neighbour. Jesus has turned the issue from the boundaries of required neighbourliness to the essential nature of neighbourliness. Neighbours are defined actively, not passively. As an Arab proverb says, “To have a good neighbour you must be one”.
The lawyer had initially asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus has now answered the question by telling a story about a Samaritan who kept a beaten man from dying. Jesus had steered the lawyer to quote the commandments to love God and love one’s neighbour. The first round of the contest between Jesus and the lawyer ended with Jesus’ injunction “Do this, and you will live” . The second round ends with a similar command: “Go and do likewise”. However, this time no promise is attached to the command. The duty of neighbourliness is an expression of love of God and love of others, and those who show mercy show that they belong among the heirs of the kingdom, but the duty of neighbourliness transcends any calculation of reward. The Samaritan could not have expected any reward or repayment for what he did for the beaten man. One who shows mercy in order to gain a reward would, therefore, not truly be doing “likewise”.
Jesus’ parable, therefore, shatters the stereotypes of social boundaries and class division and renders void any system of religious bargaining. Neighbours do not recognize social class. Neither is mercy the conduct of a calculating person, nor eternal life the reward for doing prescribed duties. Eternal life, the life of the age to come, is that quality of life characterized by showing mercy for those in need, regardless of their race, religion, or region and with no thought of reward. Mercy sees only need and responds with compassion. You can’t work your passage to heaven. Our place in heaven is based solely on God’s grace.
The story of the good Samaritan, therefore, gives new meaning to Jesus’ blessing on the disciples who had gone out preaching and caring for the sick: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!”