Good Samaritan

A lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to “inherit eternal life.” Jesus responds with questions rather than an answer. Jesus asks, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” In other words, you are a lawyer, you tell me! The lawyer quotes from Deuteronomy and Leviticus in the Old Testament, “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. Jesus affirms his answers. The lawyer is still not satisfied and asks Jesus to clarify the definition of neighbor.

This time Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is a very familiar story. The term “Good Samaritan” is a widely used and even has a place in American Jurisprudence to describe laws that protect people who are trying to assist another person in a time of distress.

Jesus tells of two religious leaders who individually pass by on the other side of the road when they observe a victim of a crime who has been left for dead. Much has been written about why the priest and the Levite did not render aid. The text does not tell us. Then Jesus tells us that a Samaritan saw the man and had compassion on him.

The Samaritan then renders first aid to the man. He loads him on his own animal and finds an Inn where he continues to care for the man. We know that he stays for the night because Jesus tells us that the next morning the Samaritan gives the innkeeper money to pay for the stay as well as to continue to care for the man. The Samaritan commits to returning and to cover any additional expenses.

If the reader is not familiar with the cultural and religious groups of the time, the fact that the hero of the story is a Samaritan might get overlooked. Jews and Samaritans hated each other. As Jesus was telling this story to a Jewish audience, a compassionate Samaritan would be an unexpected plot twist. The audience would’ve probably assumed that the victim was a Jew (although we are not told his ethnicity).

There is so much to learn from this story.

The Samaritan uses his own resources to care for the man. He does not abdicate his responsibility to anyone else. He meets the man’s immediate and intermediate needs. He seems to do so willingly as a result of his compassion rather than out of compulsion based on a sense of obligation or guilt.

When we allow ourselves to hate another without really knowing them, we can justify our vilification and demonization. In making the hero a Samaritan, Jesus challenges the status quo.

At the end of the story, Jesus once again turns the question on the Lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

It is almost as if the lawyer cannot bring himself to even say the word “Samaritan.” Instead, the lawyer replies, “the one who showed him mercy.”

Jesus tells the lawyer, and us to “go and do likewise.”