Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The parables of Jesus have formed and shaped us in ways that we cannot fully understand. And not only us who are Christian’s but Western societies and nations as a whole. The term “good Samaritan” stands for, in English, the person who takes great risks for the stranger she or he does not know. The “good Samaritan” is someone whose heart overrules her or his head and puts them in jeopardy because their compassion overrules their logic. Good Samaritans are heroes, they are exemplary citizens. We name hospitals after them and we enact Good Samaritan laws to protect those who act unselfishly in good faith.
The parable spins out of a question raised by a Pharisee whom our text calls ‘a lawyer”. He addresses Jesus as “Rabbi” or teacher, a term of respect and he acknowledges Jesus wisdom and status as an expert on matters of god. It is hard to us to understand exactly what the Pharisees were to Jesus because they have become caricatures. But the truth is Jesus loved these guys. They were very close to God and loved god deeply. They were single-mindedly devoted to God and if we had to think a modern day equivalent, they would be seminary professors or PhD’s in religion at colleges and universities. They were the crème de la crème, the best of the best.
The question and the parable arise from a definition of who is my neighbor. Jewish law said you were to love God completely and love your neighbor as yourself. Neighbors, according to Leviticus 19:18, was defined as fellow believer. This meant fellow Jews, or alien people who were in the process of becoming Jewish. They had to be attending the synagogue and learning Jewish law, worshipping and praying to God as the Jews understood God. Neighbor had a definition and limitations.
Everybody like this. We all seek boundaries. The Jews were a conquered people and Israel was owned and controlled by Rome. So there were Romans living nearby. The Romans offered conquered territory to former soldiers and foreigners who showed loyalty to Rome. Across the Sea of Galilee from Nazareth where Jesus grew up there was a Roman colony called the Decuples – which means to 10 cities. Romans, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians all kind of people lived near to the Jews and they did not consider them neighbors. They were unclean. Pious Jews could not enter their houses or eat with them. Even touching them was avoided. They rubbed elbows but lived in separate worlds.
The worlds were nearly and completely separated and divided. This made it easier to function. Life becomes more manageable.
Then, of course, Jesus does his parable thing and turns, the world, logic, common sense and the definition of neighbor on its head. The hardest theological lesson for all of us human beings to get is that there is one God who loves all of us equally. We can accept this intellectually but when it comes to acting on it as a principle we reject it right away. It is almost like sibling revelry, the jealousy between brothers and sisters in a family. We want to believe Mom loves us best, or that we are Dad’s favorite.
We think of Samaritans as God Guys now because of this parable, but the people who were listening to Jesus understood Samaritans to be the very definition of bitter enemy.
The Samaritans were cousins to the Jews. They were descendants of the 10 tribes that become the Northern Kingdom. They had cooperated with the Assyrians and the Babylonians and even fought against the Jews who were descendants of the tribes of the Southern Kingdom. It is hard to explain but Jews felt about Samaritans the way Southerners felt about Yankees after the Civil War, or Northerners Irish Catholics hated Protestants, of the way we currently feel about Ossama bin Laden and al-Qaida, a feeling of suspicion and anger that has generalized to all Muslims now.
Some young Samaritans teen had slipped over the temple walls in Jerusalem and scattered human bones all over the holy of holies just before Passover and spoiled the entire Passover celebration just for spite. All the standard negative stereo types were applied to them. They were cheats, dishonest, crafty, could not be trusted, immoral, deceitful, etc. etc.
The parable turns all this stereotypy on its head. In the parable, the Priest and the Levite who were good guys, the high status people the Billy Graham and Oral Roberts of their day pass by the wounded man. They do so for good reason. Then, as now, bands of robber typically set up a decoy that pretended to be hurt so that his crones could more easily rob the man when he went to help.
The parable worked because the opposite of what you expect to happen happens. The Samaritan shows compassion. The enemy does what’s loving and righteous. We don’t know why? Perhaps he had been beaten, robbed and left for dead. Maybe his father had been killed by thieves on this same read. He had to be frightened because thieves and brigands regularly assaulted people on this road. Somehow God’s spirit moving in him overrode his fears. God called up the compassion he felt and used it to override his self protective instincts.
What motivates us to help? My father died of Alzheimer’s disease. His last two years were torture for my mother and his family. It was horribly painful to go in and see this wonderful, loving, intelligent, funny tower of 6” 2” strength be reduced to a wheelchair bound shell who did not know who you were or who he was. The pain I still feel is searing and when I encounter someone who has Alzheimer’s I go out of my way to be helpful. I feel their pain. I know their heartbreak.
God calls us to do the impossible because God wants us to respond to everyone who is hurting with the compassion God feels. God blows away our neat, tidy, manageable categories of neighbor and says “All my children are your neighbors because all are mine.” You can not call me Parent and not feel the pain of my children because they are more than neighbors; they are your sisters and brothers.
The parable ends with a very humbled man responding to Jesus question of “Who proved to be neighbor to the man?” with the words “The one who showed mercy.”
Mercy is what Jesus shows us of course. When we rejected, tortured, crucified and killed him, Jesus begs God for our forgiveness. His shoes are impossible shoes to fill, but we can at least be moved to mercy and expand our definition of neighbor.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Who We Are