“…Go and do likewise.” / Luke 10:30-37 // The Good Samaritan (a radical story)

A Wonderful Story.

Most people have at least heard of the Good Samaritan and his story, but let’s do a quick review:

“… Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” [Like 10:30-37]

Some Background.

This parable is one of the most widely known and most often told of Jesus’ teachings.

As with almost all of Jesus’ stories, its meaning seems to be perfectly clear.  That is to “show mercy” and to take responsibility for aiding those less fortunate than ourselves.

But what is not usually recognized is just how radical this story was for its time, and how it would have shocked Jesus’ listeners.  To understand that, we have to delve into a bit of history.

The Palestine of Jesus’ time was not the clearly defined political and societal construct that many of us imagine.  “Palestine” was a name given by the Romans to a small region of the Eastern Mediterranean Coast that lay south of Phoenicia and north of the Negeb Desert.  It was further divided into five provinces or principalities, depending on who the Romans had tasked with ruling the area.

The five provinces of Palestine were:

• Galilee at the northern end of the territory and west of the Sea of Galilee;
• Decapolis also in the north but east of the Sea of Galilee and south of Syria (Decapolis plays little part in the drama of Jesus’ life or ministry);
• Samaria, south of Galilee and west of the Jordan River;
• Perea, south of Decapolis and east of the Jordan (another province that is largely immaterial to the early Christian narrative); and
• Judea, the southernmost province of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital and the Jewish Temple as the most holy place in Judaism.

Most of the region had been part of the original Kingdom of Isreal when it was founded by Saul in approximately 1050 BC.  Additional territory was added by King David and by the end of his reign, all five provinces were recognized parts of the kingdom.

But after the death of David’s son Solomon in 931 BC, the kingdom split in two.  The Kingdom of Isreal with its capital city of Samaria (in the province of the same name) was established in the north.  It was comprised of Galilee, Samaria, Decapolis, and Perea.  The Kingdom of Judea was established in the south, with Jerusalem as its capital.

Differences of Opinion.

The split between kingdoms was not relegated to politics alone.  The Northern Kingdom built a temple to Abraham’s God on Mt. Gerizim, just south of its capital.  It served as that kingdom’s most holy site until it was destroyed by invaders in 110 BC.  There they practiced a type of worship similar too but distinct from Judaism called Sarmatianism.  The two religions shared much, but there were also important differences; with each ‘side’ coming to believe that the other practiced a diluted or distorted form of the true Hebraic religion handed down from Abraham.

Over the centuries the mutual animus grew until by the time of Jesus a common belief among Jews in Judea was that anyone from the former Northern Kingdom was probably ignorant, unsophisticated, impure, and of questionable moral fiber.  Note Nathanial’s initial distaste at the idea that the Messiah could come from someplace as backward and lowly as Nazareth in Galilee.  [John1:46]

The inhabitants of the province of Samaria were similarly disdained, with the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem apparently considering the Samaritans as a group to be little better than common criminals.  Samaritans were not to be trusted and were to be avoided if at all possible.  To paraphrase Nathanial, “How could anything good come out of Samaria?”

Shocking.

That’s why Jesus’ parable about a Good Samaritan was so provocative.  His story turned everything that the “good” Jews who were listening to Him knew about their own faith and about Samaritans completely around.  It presented them with concepts and ideas that they would have never been able to conceive without His teaching.  And it displayed the hypocrisy that lay at the heart of their own religion.

To the average Jew, it probably wouldn’t have been unusual to hear of a priest or a Levite passing someone by who’d been beaten and robbed and left on the side of the road.  Priests and Levites were of the highest orders of Jewish society.  Priests administered the religious rites at the temple and the Levites assisted them.  There was no higher calling in their society than to work at the temple and to supervise and perform the ceremonies prescribed by Jewish religious law.

The two men described were expected to be scrupulous in their observance of Jewish laws and traditions.  In fact, if they’d stopped and helped the “wrong” kind of person, they could have been rendered “unclean” and thereby made unsuited to perform their duties at the temple until a period of purification had passed.  Remaining physically pure and personally pious was the definition of “religious” for the people to whom Jesus was speaking. (And, sad to say, that still applies to some of us today!)

Their religion focused most of its energy on obedience to the Law rather than to the individual’s relationship with their God.  Their thought was that if one did all things as prescribed by the Law one would automatically be in the correct alignment with God, whether they were in alignment with any other person(s) or not.

A New Direction.

But in just a few words, Jesus turned this common understanding of “religious” around.  The shallowness of the religion the priest and the Levite were observing was made evident, even to the most obdurate listener.  The idea that God would care more about a person’s personal sanitation or hygiene than the life and discomfort of one of His children was shown to be the wrong direction.

That someone as lowly as a common Samaritan trader could behave in a manner that was morally superior to that of a priest or a Levite would have been unthinkable.  That a Samaritan could find favor in the eyes of God when their religious leaders could not would have been almost beyond comprehension.  Jesus might just as well have been telling them that the sun was going to rise in the West!  That’s how radical the concepts taught in this parable would have seemed to the people listening at the time.

But the justice of God’s judgment on the priest and the Levite along with His implicit command for everyone was inescapable.  Jesus’ quote, “…Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me…” becomes tangible in this story. [Matthew 25:40]

What the Story Tells Us About God.

Here we are shown all we need to know about who God is and what He expects of us.

First, God is love.  His concern for the waylaid traveler is evident by the way the story unfolds.  It’s also shown by the fact that God provides no less than three men to come upon the victim in his moment of distress.  God provides.

Second, He expects us to care for each other whenever, wherever, or however we find another child of God in need.  “A new command I give unto you…”  [John 13:34-35] God doesn’t ask us to care for each other.  He expects us to do it.

The Samaritan did not ask the traveler what he might need.  No conditions were set, no expectation of repayment was discussed, and not even thanks were required. The Samaritan simply saw the man’s need and met it.  God had given him a job to do and he did it.

Third, He rewards us with blessings and justification when we heed this most fundamental command.  Of the three passersby mentioned in the story, which received God’s blessing for his charity and mercy?  “The one who had mercy on him.” [Luke 10:36]

Lessons for us today.

To His listeners at the time, Jesus could not have told a story more at odds with their traditional ways of thinking.  The facts He presented and the points He made would have clashed with the value system they’d been taught to live by.  And yet, the conclusion of the story was inescapable.

This was a radical story with a radical message.  Jesus told this at a time when such radical thinking about God was necessary.  It is no less necessary today.

Then, the Jews had over 1,000 years of tradition and history arguing with the truths that Jesus was teaching.  Today we have over 2,000 additional years of religious tradition and history.  Unfortunately, some of it continues to argue with the truths He’s still trying to teach us.

A Hope.

God puts people who need our help, compassion, and love in our paths every day, just as He did for those three men on the road to Jericho over two hundred centuries ago.  Each of us enjoy the same choices of action or behavior that they had.  And each of us is no less responsible for our fellow life-travelers than the Samaritan was.  I pray that we aren’t the priest or the Levite in our own stories.

God’s Blessing on You All.

Richard

May 24, 2019