Luke 10:25-37, “The Parable of the Good Samaritan”
Imagine walking from here to Waukegan. It would be a much longer walk than most of us are accustomed to, but if gas prices continue to rise, it’s a walk you may have to make someday. It might be a long walk, but it would be a fairly smooth walk. Now, imagine walking that same distance, but only you descend 3500 feet along the way. It would be a very different walk, but that’s something of what it would be like to walk from Jerusalem to Jericho—the setting for this famous parable.
The Jericho road was notoriously treacherous—hilly, barren, dry, rocky—and plenty of scoundrels were hiding behind the rocks to pounce on the unsuspecting. Thus, Jesus’ story was very much true to life. It was not uncommon for a man to be mugged and robbed while attempting this journey. And you know this familiar parable, a man fell into the hands of a band of robbers, who beat him and left him for dead while taking pretty much all that was on his body.
Of course, you know well the rest of the story. Most people may not really know who the Samaritans were, but they still likely know who the Good Samaritan was. Along with the Prodigal Son, this is one of the two most famous parables of Jesus. Just as we all know what it means to be a Prodigal Son, so also we all know what it means to be a Good Samaritan. It means that you are kind to your neighbors, regardless of how poor and sick they may be (and regardless of their race). Right? The Good Samaritan is the supremely, all-around nice guy—or so we tend to think.
Today we need to take a fresh look at this well-known story, and to do so, we’ll ask ourselves a series of basic questions.
1. What prompted Jesus to tell this story?
2. What prompted the Samaritan to help the man who was robbed?
3. What response should this parable prompt in us?
1. What prompted Jesus to tell this story?
Jesus faced yet another challenge: a lawyer put him to the test. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” If Luke hadn’t told us of the lawyer’s motivation, we would probably take this to be a sincere question. In itself, it’s the best question you could ever ask of Jesus.
But Jesus knows the intent of this lawyer. And as we see time and again in Jesus’ confrontations with his enemies, he turns the tables. Jesus won’t answer any questions here until he has asked one of his own. Notice the pattern of the dialogue in this passage:
Lawyer’s question A
Jesus’ question B
Lawyer’s answer B
Jesus’ answer A
Lawyer’s question C
Jesus’ (parable and) question D
Lawyer’s answer D
Jesus’ answer C
In other words, Jesus, when tested, immediately takes control of the conversation and adjusts it to fit his agenda. He has questions of his own which must first be answered. As always, Jesus is the authoritative teacher; he is the expert.
The lawyer is trying to trap Jesus. He wants Jesus to criticize the Law of Moses. He hopes that Jesus will say something to indict and condemn himself. Jesus already has the reputation of being loose and licentious—”works” on the Sabbath, eats with sinners, disciples don’t fast, disciples pick grain on the Sabbath. But in every such case of supposed licentiousness, Jesus has been able to explain the lawfulness of his actions—the Sabbath was made for man; he has come to call sinners to repentance; it’s not a time to fast when the bridegroom is present; etc.
Knowing what the lawyer hopes to accomplish, Jesus immediately upholds the Law of Moses. “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And this lawyer is obviously smart, because his answer is flawless: love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor. Then, Jesus finally gives his reply: do this and you will live. Again, Jesus upholds the Law; he quotes Leviticus 18:5, that important verse which Paul also cites in Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12. That is such an important verse because it is a perfect example of why the Law is not good news. Both Jesus and Paul highlight this little OT verse, because it states so simply and plainly that life comes through obedience.
How does the lawyer respond? Luke tells us that he desired “to justify himself”. You could read this simply as the lawyer’s desire to have the last word, as his desire not to give up yet on his effort to test Jesus. And yes, of course, the lawyer wants to win this debate. He wants to prove himself to be the true defender of the Law. But there’s more here. Surely Luke, who recall was a companion to Paul on parts of his missionary trips, surely Luke knows what he’s doing by using the word “justify” here. Surely Luke is well-acquainted with Paul’s teaching to the Galatians and the Romans. Surely Luke knows how Paul handled Leviticus 18:5, and surely Luke knows that Jesus used Leviticus 18:5 the same way—to expose the failure of the Law to bring life. The Law extends the offer—do this and live—but who has ever found life by law-keeping?
The lawyer understands the dilemma before him. Either he finds a way to qualify himself as a law-keeper, or else he must abandon his hope of finding life in the Law. Thus, he asks, “Who is my neighbor?”—which sets the stage for the parable.
You see, then, that Jesus tells this story in the context of a legal dispute. What is the meaning and intention of the commandments? In this parable, is Jesus trying to encourage the lawyer to be more obedient to the Law? No. Rather, Jesus strips the lawyer of his self-confidence. The lawyer desires to justify himself, but Jesus won’t allow for that. As Paul put it, Galatians 3:21-22, “For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin.”
2. What prompted the Samaritan to help the man who was robbed?
The parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus’ reply to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus will ask the lawyer, “Which of the three men in my story proved to be a neighbor?” The story is so startling because the hero is a Samaritan, and Jews hated Samaritans. The relations between the two parties were especially poor in the first century (as we can tell from John 4, among other places). (Also, in Lk 9:51-56, a Samaritan village rejected Jesus, and James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven on them.) Notice at the end of our passage how the lawyer cannot even bring himself to say the word, “Samaritan”.
The Samaritans were a mongrel race, half-breeds, part Jewish. They had their own worship, distinct from the rest of Israel—their own worship site (Mt. Gerizim), their own Scriptures (Five Books of Moses). The Jews viewed the Samaritans as filthy and foolish heretics. For a Jew, the only Good Samaritan was a dead Samaritan. So, it’s shocking that Jesus would make the Samaritan the neighborly one in his story. But as we’ve seen over and over, this is Jesus’ mode of operation. There’s always a new twist in his teaching. He doesn’t just tell the people the same old things they have always heard.
The shock value of the parable is even magnified by the fact that the other two travelers were a priest and a Levite. These were supposed to be the holiest of men on all the earth. Yet, they pass by their fellow Jew, staying as far away from the battered body as possible. These holy men couldn’t tell whether the body was dead or alive, and they couldn’t risk defiling themselves by touching a corpse. They are just trying to be faithful keepers of the Law, right? Wrong. Law-keeping is not about outward conformity to a written rule, as we considered last week. Law-keeping is a matter of the heart, ultimately. Both the priest and the Levite had cold hearts. They are too busy with their own lives, trying to keep their own hands clean, to take time to dirty their hands in service to another. But the Lord desires mercy, and not sacrifice.
Still, though, even if we understand why the priest and the Levite did not stop to help, it seems much harder to explain why the Samaritan did show mercy. What prompted him to do so? The feelings between Jews and Samaritans were mutual. Samaritans hated Jews just as much as Jews hated Samaritans. For example, in 9 AD, Samaritans defiled the temple in Jerusalem by scattering bones in it one night during Passover. That was just one event in a long history of hostility and animosity.
If we are to understand why the Samaritan did what he did, I think we need to pause momentarily and reconsider another question that is often taken for granted. Where is Jesus in this parable? We often assume that the Good Samaritan is a picture of Christ. And, yes, to a large extent that’s a legitimate correlation. No one loved his fellow man more than Jesus.
But, Jesus is giving this parable to counter someone “desiring to justify himself”. Jesus’ main message here cannot be one of moral example. Jesus, with this story, is stripping this self-righteous lawyer of his pseudo-morality. He is showing the lawyer how he is just like the priest and Levite of the parable. He is saying, “You don’t love your neighbor as yourself. You don’t love your fellow Israelite. Even Samaritans are capable of being more neighborly than you.
The question that started this whole conversation, remember, had to do with inheriting eternal life. How could Jesus possibly answer that question without reference to himself and his work as our Redeemer? Jesus must be in this parable somewhere, and specifically, Jesus as our Savior. True, Jesus closes the parable with the instruction, “You go, and do likewise.” But those words are akin to “Do this and live.” By themselves, these words don’t help the self-justifying lawyer. These words should lead the lawyer to despair. He’s worse off than a scum-bag Samaritan.
The good news of this parable may be veiled a little bit, but it’s here. We need to take a closer look at the character that is usually glossed over the most: the man who was robbed. Consider what we are told about him. He left Jerusalem, the Holy City, Zion, the City of our God. And he went down; he descended along a path that took him through the wilderness and wasteland. His body was beaten and bruised, “leaving him half dead”. He was despised and rejected by men. His own received him not. Sound vaguely familiar?
The key to the parable is that the Samaritan, who was by nature an enemy of this man, looked upon him and “had compassion”. That is, he identified with this scorned and reproached man. He saw himself in that man. Thus, he united himself to that man, bearing his reproach.
Just as we by nature are enemies of Christ, that all changes once we look upon him and find our life in his. By uniting with Christ, our life is hid in his, and his life becomes ours—his eternal life is ours. That’s, in the end, how you inherit eternal life.
Supported by story of Mary and Martha in next section. Martha, like priest and Levite, was too busy with her own life to pay impractical attention to someone who wasn’t about to give her the kind of help she thought she needed.
The cross is looming over this whole section of Luke. Jesus had already “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9:51). This is a parable of grace. [Note on chronology of parables: kingdom, grace, then judgment.]
Yes, the lawyer must be condemned by the Law he is vainly trying to find life in. But then the lawyer must also see himself as a Samaritan, an enemy of God by nature, who needs to look upon the humble Son of Man and join him in his suffering and death. Only those who are crucified with Christ are raised with Christ unto life eternal.
3. What response should this parable prompt in us?
Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Matthew 25:40, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
Hebrews 13:2, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Only through union with Christ are we able to begin obeying the command, “Go and do likewise.” Only through the power of his blood and righteousness.
