Text: Luke 10:25-37
Have you ever acted as a good Samaritan to someone in need? Has something like that happened to you? A survey was taken some years ago to ask people why they gave to charity. The primary reply was a reference to today’s story of the good Samaritan. The impact of this parable of our Lord has been vast. Charitable organisations like Samaritan’s Purse have brought immense help to the poor and needy in many parts of our world.
A Bible study group was examining this life-changing parable to see whom they could identify with in this story. One member of the group felt he had to identify with the robbers because he was led to see how he’d robbed those near to him of his time and love. That night, he wrote a letter to his wife to seek her forgiveness. His letter had a deep impression on her. She responded. “Only the Holy Spirit could have revealed these things to you.”
Many of Jesus’ parables are like a symphony in four movements. The first movement seeks to capture the attention of His listeners, the second movement is a challenge by Jesus on how to live out our faith in daily life, while the third concerns the good news Jesus brings us, and the final movement brings the story to a climax pointing us to what Jesus is doing in our midst for us even now, as our Good Samaritan. His love for us reaches its climax o n the cross. He pours out His love on to two categories of sinners, both law-keepers and law-breakers. Each is as bad as the other.
Law-keepers believe they can keep the law without any divine assistance, while law-breakers believe they’re unworthy of the extraordinary love Jesus offers them. Jesus’ chief critics, the lawyers and Pharisees, didn’t see their keeping of the law as an expression of gratitude to God for the grace He so freely bestowed on them. The law had become for them instead the means by which law-breakers could be identified and condemned. The lawyer who approaches Jesus in today’s parable gives a mixed message. His lips express respect for Jesus; his heart, however, desires to trip Jesus up.
Instead of answering the lawyer’s question, Jesus replies to the lawyer’s question with another question. Jesus could have put the lawyer down by pointing out the question has a simple answer. No one can do anything to inherit something. Inheritance, by its nature, is a gift. Jesus chose instead to play the lawyer at his own game. To the lawyer’s credit, he quotes a known summary of the law that may have originated with Jesus Himself. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind” and “Love your neighbour as yourself”. The genius of his reply is that he places love for God before love of neighbour, even though “love of neighbour” comes first in the Old Testament.
The exchange continues with Jesus’ quick-witted response: “Do this and you will live”. Jesus’ response takes the wind out of the lawyer’s sails. He knows it’s impossible to do this perfectly. Instead of levelling with Jesus with an honest reply, like saying “That’s impossible!”, he seeks to justify himself with another curly question: “who is my neighbour?” He wants to know love’s boundaries. For the Jews, “neighbour” meant fellow-Jew. Jesus declines to tell him who his neighbour is; Jesus answers the unasked question, “To whom am I a neighbour?”
Jesus now shares a simple but subversive story with the lawyer and with us. For 17 miles, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho goes through desolate land, a haunt for robbers and hijackers. Jesus’ listeners can picture the horrific scene: a fellow Jew being mugged, robbed and dumped by the roadside, left unconscious. The first man to see him unconscious is a priest. Priests back then were members of the upper class and rode, rather than walked. We’re shocked by Jesus’ comment: “The priest passed by on the other side”. Why didn’t he stop? we protest. He’s perhaps scared he might be attacked too. More likely, though, the roadside victim could be a notorious sinner. If he helped him, he might defile himself and render himself unfit to lead worship in the House of God. He considers his liturgical duties more important than stopping to help. Besides, he’s probably going to preach about loving one’s fellow Jews.
Next, a Levite, a priest’s assistant, comes along. As a member of the lower class he would have been walking. As he approaches the victim, he looks ahead and sees that the priest didn’t stop to help. “Why then should I?” he probably thinks to himself. Jesus’ words, “He too passed by” still impact on our ears. This part of the parable is still so powerful, so contemporary and disturbing, we have to ask ourselves “When have I passed by someone I could have helped?” And then we need to pray, “God, have mercy on me and fill me with love for those who need my love.”
The third person who comes along helps the victim. A Samaritan helping is the last person Jesus’ listeners would have expected. They would rather have expected a Jewish layman to help, not a Samaritan. It would be like telling Jews in Israel today about a “good Arab” or telling Arabs about a “good Jew”. The Samaritan sees the terrible state the Jewish victim is in. So with a heart overflowing with compassion he stops and acts in love to the dying man. He binds up his wounds and then pours on oil and wine to stop the bandage from sticking, and to ensure that their healing properties reach his injuries. Without any aids, he lifts him onto his donkey and leads him to a Jewish inn in the middle of Jericho. In those days there were no rural inns. Inns were in the heart of a town. There he runs the risk of being criticised for his actions. But he not only provides for the victim’s immediate needs, he pays in advance for 24 days of care.
His use of oil and wine to begin the healing process reminds us of their use in Jewish worship. The true “priest” in this story is the Samaritan. By pouring out a thank-offering on the altar of the victim’s wounds, the Samaritan makes an acceptable sacrifice to God. His seven actions make up for the priest and Levite’s sins of omission. He freely and spontaneously shows unexpected love that far surpasses any known obligation. He goes the second mile, going far beyond the bare minimum. He forgets himself in his utterly other-centred approach to someone in desperate need.
Now there are two kinds of sinners in Jesus’ parable: first, the robbers who compound their robbery with violence, and second, the priest and Levite who are guilty of the sins of omission, of failing to do any good at all when they had the opportunity. Edmund Burke once said, “Evil triumphs because the good do nothing”. It’s easy to make up excuses for inaction, for failure to do good towards someone else. We need to pray, “Help me to act like the Samaritan rather than the priest”.
When Jesus now asks the lawyer, “Who acted as a neighbour?” the lawyer cannot say the word “the Samaritan!” He can only say, “the one who had mercy on the victim”. It’s not a question of “who is my neighbour?” BUT, “who am I going to be a neighbour to?”
Our Lord’s words to the lawyer, “Go and do likewise” should have led him to ask Jesus, “What must I now do to be saved?” He needs to see himself as a helpless victim in need of Jesus as his Saviour. He needs conversion more than he needs more instruction. You see, before we can identify with the Samaritan, we must first of all identify with the wounded traveller. In pointing to the Good Samaritan, Jesus is pointing us to Himself. He is our Good Samaritan who sees us bruised, battered and wounded along life’s way. Through no merit of our own, but out of His inexhaustible compassion, Jesus comes to our aid. Through the picture of the Good Samaritan, Jesus gives us a portrait of Himself and what He can do for us.
As the Samaritan paid for the healing of the victim, so Jesus made the ultimate payment: the sacrifice of Himself, to save us. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to pay the price for our sins (1 John 4:10).” Jesus is the embodiment of mercy. He binds up our spiritual and emotional wounds, pouring the healing oil of His forgiveness and the wine of His love on us in Holy Communion. He entrusts us to the Inn of His Church, where He continues His ongoing care of us.
His Church, this church, is like a hospital. Here, through the medicine of His amazing grace, your wounded Healer cares for you, so you can care for whatever unexpected needy person might be ;your “neighbour” tomorrow, Thursday, or Saturday. Here, in His hospital, Jesus can transform the most unlikely men and women into Good Samaritans. To love your neighbour ”as yourself” means as ;the new other-centred self Jesus is making of you, gloriously other-focussed and continually grateful for His great love for you that never ends.
Now, as you go from the “Jerusalem” of this morning’s worship to the “Jericho” of your daily life, rediscover the joy of putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. “Love overlooks the many faults and failures of others (1 Peter 4:8).”