In today’s Gospel, a scholar of the law tries to test Jesus when he questions him about how to inherit eternal life. Jesus, who was so adept at handling those who wanted to trick him answered with a question. “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
The scholar replied: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Because the scholar needed to justify himself in front of the others who were there, he asked “And who is my neighbor?”
Once again, Jesus turns his answer back to the scholar with a parable and a question. “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Go and do likewise!
Everything about this parable is wrong! Extremely wrong.
John Pilch helps us to understand the culture that made each of the characters in the parable take the actions they did.
In the Mediterranean world questions are rarely perceived as requests for information. They are almost always viewed with suspicion as a challenge to personal honor. The hope is that the person who is asked a question will not know the answer and be shamed by ignorance. Lest the reader miss the point, Luke explicitly states that the lawyer’s intent was to “test” Jesus.
In this seven-scene parable, the Samaritan stands at the center:
The robbers strip their victim and leave him half dead. Now, no one can identify the victim’s ethnicity by his garments or his accent, two very common ways of identifying a stranger in antiquity. Helping him carries a risk.
The priest, riding a donkey in accord with his elite status, notices the victim and ponders. If the victim is dead or is a non-Judean, the priest would be defiled by touching him and have to return to Jerusalem for purification. Those who just saw him gloriously fulfilling his priestly role would now see him returning in shame for purification. The risk is too great. The priest rides on.
The Levite may have come even closer to examine the victim. Even though the road is not straight, the Levite very likely saw the priest’s response to the victim from afar. If the priest did not give first aid, why should the Levite? That would be a challenge to the priest, an insult. Moreover, if this victim is one of those who live in Shechem (a Samaritan). The Levite too, passes on.
The Samaritan is a shocking third character in this story. Listeners would have expected “a Judean layperson.” But this hated enemy is the first to feel compassion! The Hebrew word, related to womb, describes an inner gut-feeling.
He offers the first aid (wine, oil, and bandages), which the Levite could have done but neglected to do. The Samaritan’s risk is that this victim might hate him upon re-gaining consciousness. Samaritan wine and oil were considered impure and would have made the (very likely) Judean victim impure too! In a certain sense, the Samaritan in this story line will be “damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.”
The Samaritan then does what the priest might have done but didn’t: he places the victim on his animal, takes him to an inn, and continues to care for him.
Finally, the Samaritan, in contrast to the robbers, promises to return and pay any additional expenses. This is perhaps the most foolish part of this story. If the victim should die, his family, who will not be able to find the robbers, may kill his benefactor instead. Or if the victim survives, he may rage at this Samaritan for making him impure with Samaritan wine and oil. It is impossible to underestimate the importance of purity, that is, the determination to “be holy as the Lord is holy” as defined in Leviticus.
Without John Pilch’s help, we would miss the whole point of the Gospel. The religious leaders ignored the victim, because it would make them unclean. A Samaritan, whom the Jewish people view with contempt and have no association with is the one who helps.
We often forget that Jesus was a radical in his day. He defied many things about the religious leaders of his faith because of the hypocrisy of how it was lived. It was based more on how important a person was or how important a person was seen in the eyes of others rather than what was in one’s heart. This parable is a prime example of that. How often do we act like the priest or Levite instead of the Samaritan?
Jesus was constantly teaching that the intent of the heart is what really matters. It’s whether we love as God loves us and are willing to share God’s love with others that really counts. Even though Samaritans have nothing to do with Jews, the Samaritan is moved with pity seeing the person, lying along the road, beaten and suffering.
Remember how the Gospel stated? It starts with a scholar of the law asking Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks the scholar what is written in the law and how he reads the law. The response is to love God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus told the scholar: “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” Why is this so hard for us to live this law? It becomes even more difficult when we comprehend everyone who is our neighbor. Yes, everyone I s our neighbor, even the person in the family whom we can’t stand!
Do I love God with all my heart? Do I love God above everything else in the world? Do I love my neighbor as myself? Not only the person who lives next door in my neighborhood who looks and acts like me but the person in the urban ghetto, the homeless person, the political person I don’t like, the rude person at the store or at work, the person who cut me off on the highway coming to church today.
Do I really love my neighbor as myself?
Jesus is telling each of us: “Go and do likewise.”
