We begin with an expert of the law asking Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Jesus, who rarely answers a question directly asks what the law has to say. The expert in the law rightly recites Leviticus: Love your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says yup, that’s the textbook answer. Easy as pie. Then the law expert asks, well, who is my neighbor. And maybe the expert in the law is thinking, well, who isn’t my neighbor? It's not defined in the text. Is it just the people who live on my street? Who lives in my town? State? Country? Then Jesus launches into the parable we’ve all heard maybe a million times.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is probably one of the most common stories and concepts we run into inside and outside the church. There are Good Samaritan laws, protections for strangers who give reasonable assistance in life-threatening situations, or relief agencies that support people who are housing insecure. The story of the Good Samaritan is everywhere – I think in an ideal world we would all act like the Good Samaritan did in this parable. We teach this story to our kids in Sunday school. I remember as a kid in a church choir, we sang a song from Veggietales about loving our neighbor based on this parable. One lyric that has always stuck with me was:
“My hair is curly, your hair is not
But when we look deeper, there's more that we've got
God made us special and now I can see
If you're special to God then you're special to me
Love your neighbor
When someone helps you, then you'll understand
When you love your neighbor
Loving means lending a hand”
This is one of my core formations as a Christian. And I think it is such an important message from Jesus, particularly to teach our young people and live out through our lives. Be good to our neighbor like the Samaritan was. The Samaritan was acting Christlike by helping someone in need, and so can we. Help where and when we can like the Samaritan. See that God made us special and God made our neighbor special too, just like the Samaritan did.
This is a parable as old as time at this point. Sometimes I hear this story and I say okay, yup, got it. I have heard this story a million times and I will hear it a million more times. I need to remember to love my neighbor extra hard this week just like I heard on Sunday. And my neighbor is anyone I can show mercy to, okay go it. I feel like I can check a box off my spiritual to-do list and move on.
But Jesus does not call us to move on and simply check an “I did good by loving my neighbor this week” box. If we are not careful, we can tell ourselves: we got this lesson as a kid and we love our neighbor enough already. We can become a little complacent. Jesus calls us to love God and love our neighbor all the time. Just as Jesus loved us so much to die for us all, so are we called to love our neighbors. And if I’m being honest with myself, I am not always good at doing those two things all the time. We are human, after all. We can’t get it right all the time. That’s why we need to hear this parable from Jesus and sit with it from time to time, and maybe think about it in a new way.
One thing a colleague once asked a group I was in to consider was: what if we weren’t the Samaritan in the story. Which character would we be then?
Some days, I am in a hurry and I pass by the man on the side of the road like the priest. Or like the Levite, I don’t think I have anything to offer the person in need who I walk by. I know I can come up with a million excuses why I did not pause to help someone in need. It’s really easy to do. I can get caught up in the busyness of my own life, of trying to live up to living a grand like I see on TV or in the news, and forget that I am following someone who offers eternal life. Not the life as seen on tv.
Some days, I might even feel like the person left for dead in the ditch. And while those situations might not actually be life threatening, they can be devastating. Some days it’s my mental health. Or being overwhelmed with responsibilities because I said yes to too much. It’s a flat tire on the side of a highway, damages from a storm, a devastating divorce, or holding a loved one’s hand as she dies after a long battle with breast cancer. Some days it's circumstances outside of our control, leaving us behind feeling wrecked.
And who comes ambling down the road? The Samaritan.
Now, a little historical context about the Samaritans and the Jews in first-century Palestine. There was an ancient and bitter rivalry between these two groups of people. The two groups disagreed about everything that mattered: how to honor God, how to interpret the Scriptures, and how and where to worship. They practiced their faith in separate temples, read different versions of the Torah, and avoided social contact with each other whenever possible. They hated each other. So while we are inclined to like the Samaritan in our modern reading, the disciples listening to this story were scandalized.
“What do you mean, Jesus, that a Samaritan would stop to help this man? A Samaritan would never. His heart would be cold and closed off from compassion and kindness and mercy.”
There are all sorts of narratives we tell about a group that is apart from our own to separate us as “us versus them.”
But here is Jesus, answering the question of “who is my neighbor?” by telling a story that has many layers. The first is the one I said earlier. We are to be like the Good Samaritan – showing mercy to our neighbor. The second is to be like the person left for dead in the ditch, open to receiving help when in need. The person left for dead is not identified by their ethnicity, or job, or social class. This person is identified by their naked need in that moment. The person on the side of the road is in need of compassion, kindness, and mercy.
And when we are left broken on the side of the road, all those labels seem to fall away. Divisions between us and them are not as important anymore. Our need comes first and is the only thing that matters. And if you haven’t experienced this, maybe one day you will.
Somehow, someday, somewhere, we will. In a hospital room? At a graveside? After a marriage fails? After the storm, the family fight, a devastating injury, or diagnosis? Somehow, someday, somewhere. In every single one of our lives, it will happen.
And who comes beside us in those moments? Who is our neighbor in that time? It will be the one who scandalizes us with compassion, kindness, and mercy.
At the end of the parable, the lawyer doesn’t identify the neighbor by ethnicity. The Lawyer identifies the neighbor by action. The one who shows compassion, kindness, and above all, mercy. Jesus charges us to go and do likewise.
I also charge us to go and receive likewise from someone who scandalizes us.
Amen.
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