We're going to continue now with our study
of the parables of Jesus, and in this session, we're going to be looking at one of my very
favorite parables, and one that's widely known among church people. It's the Parable of the
Good Samaritan. And we find that in the 10th Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke,
and to understand the impact of this parable, we have to see the context in which Luke has
placed this story that Jesus gives. And so we read in Chapter 10 of Luke, beginning at
Verse 25, these words: "And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and
tested him, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And He said to
him, 'What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?' So he answered and said,
'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' And He said to him,
'You have answered rightly. Do this and you will live.' But he, wanting to justify himself,
said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' "Then Jesus answered and said, 'A certain
man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his
clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, by chance, a certain priest
came down that road, and when he saw him he passed by him on the other side. Likewise,
a Levite, when he arrived, came and looked and passed by on the other side. "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed,
came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion, so he went to him and bandaged
his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, brought him to
an inn, and took care of him. On the next day when he departed, he took out two denarii,
gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend
when I come again I will repay you.' So which of these three do you think was neighbor to
him who fell among the thieves?' "And he said, 'He who showed mercy on him.'
Then Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.'" So the context in which we get the Parable
of the Good Samaritan is in the context of a brief interrogation that is provoked by
this lawyer who comes to Jesus, and Luke tells us his purpose of asking questions of Jesus
was not because he was genuinely seeking wisdom from the Lord, but rather his purpose was
to put Jesus to the test. So he came saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life?" And Jesus, knowing that this man is a lawyer, said to him, "Well, what is written
in the law?" As a lawyer in Israel, he was supposed to
be a master of the Old Testament law. So Jesus puts the test to him, said, "If you're an
attorney, practicing the mastery of Biblical law, what does the law say that you have to
do in order to inherit eternal life?" And the attorney answers by reciting the great
commandment. He said, "You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind," and
I think he just added on this concluding scientific postscript, "and your neighbor as yourself."
Now, obviously, he had memorized the great commandment as every student of the law had
done in antiquity, and so it was not much of a test to answer this question for Jesus.
And he gave the answer correctly. And so Jesus said to him, "You've answered rightly. Do
this and you will live." So Jesus is offering the promise of eternal
life to a person, who if all they had to do was keep the great commandment, or to keep
the law of God. Of course, Jesus knew that people like the Pharisees and people like
this scribe or lawyer were people who thought they did a superb job of keeping the law,
and in keeping the law they would merit entrance into the kingdom of God. We know, also, from Jesus' teaching elsewhere,
that He was trying to get people to see that if they really understood the law, the law
would drive them to some other way to salvation than by seeking to work their way into heaven
by their own good deeds, because what the law does is expose our sin and our neediness
if we examine it rightly. I've always said, it's not by accident that the two greatest
magisterial reformers of the 16th century Reformation had both been diligent students
of the law. Luther and Calvin, both, had training in the law, and as they studied the law of
God, they were driven to the gospel, because the law left them in despair. But there was no such experience in the heart
of this lawyer. He assumed that he was keeping the great commandment, and Jesus said, "Go
ahead. You keep it, you'll live, you don't have anything to worry about." But the lawyer wasn't finished with Jesus.
He wants to probe a little bit deeper. You know, it's interesting when you're in discussions
of theology and debating certain issues that one of the standard responses you get from
people is, "Well, what do you mean by this? Well, define your terms." That's usually an
escape mechanism from dealing with the matter that is on the table, but this lawyer was
quick to do that sort of thing. He said, "Well, Jesus, just who is my neighbor? What does
the law mean when it says I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself? I understand what
it means to love God with all my strength and all of my heart and all of my mind and
all that but what do you mean love my neighbor as I love myself? Who is my neighbor?" Now, Jesus had an abstract question before
him, and he could have given an abstract answer. He could have said, "Well, your neighbor may
be defined as somebody who lives next door to you or on the street where you live, or,
even more broadly, extended to anyone who lives in your neighborhood. Anybody in your
neighborhood can be construed as being your neighbor." Now, among the Jews, and particularly among
the Pharisees, they gave a very narrow definition of who was one's neighbor. For them, it would
be a fellow Jew and a fellow righteous Jew, presumably like one of the rest of the Pharisees,
and they distinguished between themselves and righteous men and the people of the land
-- the lower class people. Certainly, people who were outside of the nation of Israel were
considered outside of the neighborhood of God, and of those outside of the Jewish neighborhood,
perhaps those most despised, would have been the Samaritans, who, during the captivity,
some of those who remained intermarried with pagans and produced what the Jews considered
a half-breed race of semi-Jews. The Samaritans had their own temple in Gerizim that they
favored over the temple worship in Jerusalem, as you recall from Jesus' discussion with
the woman of Sychar or the woman at the well. Also, when the Jews came back from captivity
and tried to rebuild the temple, the Samaritans harassed them by throwing dead pigs into the
construction area. That contaminated and defiled the holy ground, and they would have to go
through a couple of weeks of re-sanctification and put the construction on hold while they
dealt with all of this harassment. So there was very bad blood between the Jews and the
Samaritans and we are told elsewhere that Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans,
and in fact, Jesus shocked people when he traveled from Judea to Galilee, going through
Samaria to get where he was going, rather than going the roundabout way that the Jews
customarily did. So now, Jesus answers the question about the
neighbor by telling this story. He tells the story of a man, presumably a Jew, who has
gone from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Now, this is not Old Testament Jericho where the
walls came tumbling down. This is New Testament Jericho, about 17 miles away from the city
of Jerusalem, and the 17 miles is through some rather desolate countryside. New Testament
Jericho, if you've ever been there, know that it's a town that is built around a rather
large oasis, and that was the attractive point. And so merchants would frequently travel from
Jerusalem down to Jericho to sell their wares because there were people living there on
this oasis property, but it's also even to this day a favorite place for those who were
highwaymen or thieves who would lay in wait for somebody who was traveling alone perhaps
or an unprotected small group of merchants. They would hide in the rocks and when the
evening would come they would fall upon them and rob them of their wares. And so Jesus may have been telling a story
that actually took place. This may not have been a made-up, illustrative parable in this
case. But he said, "The man was going down to Jericho. On the way, he fell among thieves
who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, obviously stole everything of value that
he had, and beat him severely, and they left him," as the parable says, "half-dead." So
this victim of the savage beating from the thieves was left in such a situation that
obviously if no one rendered him help, or if no one came to his rescue, he would surely
die there, naked, alone, beaten to the point of being half-dead. Now, the rest of the story
tells of people who saw this poor man lying in the street, and what their reaction was. By chance, a certain priest came down that
road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. It's not that he failed to
see him. He saw the man. He saw him lying there in a heap, and obviously, from the priest's
vantage point, he couldn't tell for sure whether this man was dead or alive, and so he gave
the man a wide berth, walked to the other side of the road. Now, why was that? Well,
there were all these laws among the priests and among the Pharisees and the Levites and
the rest that had to do with defilement and cleansing rituals, and one of those laws said
that you were not allowed to touch a corpse, and if you touched a corpse, then you would
have to go through all kinds of cleansing rituals in order to resume your priestly activities. So this man, fearing that the fellow who had
fallen among the thieves was dead, he went as far around him as he could. He didn't want
to have to go through these rituals of cleansing that would interrupt the normal course of
his priestly activities, and so he went to the other side of the road. And then we read, likewise, a Levite. A Levite,
consecrated in that whole tribe to do the works of God and teaching, when he arrived
at the place, he came and looked and he passed by on the other side. So we know these two
men, who are members of the clergy, who've been set apart for, among other things, performing
works of mercy. Not only didn't stop to help this man, they saw him there, they looked
at him, and went on the other side. They gave no help whatsoever. As far as they were concerned,
if the man wasn't dead already, he certainly would be as a result of their refusal to give
any ministrations to him. But now, we read, in the parable, of a third man who comes along,
and he is identified not as a priest, not as a Levite, but Jesus chose this carefully
-- as a Samaritan. And he said, "A certain Samaritan." This parable's
called The Parable of the Good Samaritan, and if you told the Jews I'm going to tell
you a parable of a good Samaritan, a Jew would say that's an oxymoron. There's no such thing
as a good Samaritan, or are you going to tell me the story of a dead Samaritan? Because
the only good Samaritan is a dead Samaritan, in their view. But this man was very much
alive, and he comes along and we read: "He came to the place where the man was." Now
here's perhaps the most important sentence in the whole parable. "And when he saw him,
he had compassion." This was exactly what the priest and the Levite did not have. They
felt nothing for this miserable wretch that was lying naked in the street, but when the
Samaritan saw this man, brutally beaten, he had compassion. Now let me just stop here for a second. The
story could have gone like this: Well, the Samaritan saw this man in the street, felt
awful for this fellow, overwhelmed with a sense of pity, and then walked to the other
side and went down the street. No. The compassion that he had lead him to action. He didn't
just say, "I'll say a prayer for you fellow, I feel your pain," and go on. He acted to
do everything in his power to show mercy to this enemy who had fallen among thieves. He
went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and after he anointed this
man in his misery, he picked him up. The man obviously couldn't walk. He put him on his
own animal, on his own beast of burden, presumably meaning that the Samaritan would then walk
next to the donkey or camel or whatever it was, giving up his seat so that this injured
man may have a place to ride. And brought him to an inn. Now, they didn't go to the hospital, to the
emergency room, and just leave him at the emergency room, and then go on about his business
because he has an appointment in Jericho. No. His whole day, his whole journey, his
whole business has to be put aside, because the top priority for this Samaritan is, "I've
got to see to it that this man is taken care of." So he takes him to the inn. He gets them
a room in the inn. He makes sure that the fellow gets everything he needs at the inn,
all the food and all the care. And on the next day, he stayed all night in the inn simply
because of this poor man. When he departed, he took out two denarii which he gave to the
innkeeper and said to him, "Take care of him. Whatever it takes, take care of him. Whatever
it costs, take care of him. You know me, I make this trip regularly, I'll be back the
next time I'm in this neighborhood and whatever I owe you I will pay you at that time." After the story, Jesus says to the attorney,
the lawyer, "Which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?"
Again, this was theology 101. This was the easiest question that this lawyer had ever
been asked. Which of the three men do you think was the neighbor? The lawyer couldn't
miss it. He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." He didn't just feel compassion, he
showed compassion. And in this story, Jesus is not just simply adjoining us to treat people
who are harmed or hurt or in need with mercy and compassion. Again, the whole point of
the story is to answer the question, "Who is my neighbor?" There are no limits, Jesus
is saying. No ethnic limits, no geographical limits, to the neighborhood of the kingdom
of God. You know, we hear from 19th century liberals
that God is the father of us all and that we have this universal brotherhood. No. We
don't have a universal brotherhood. In the New Testament the brotherhood is made up restrictively
of all those who are in Christ. Christ is the only begotten son of the father, and he
is our elder brother. The only way we entered this brotherhood is through adoption, and
people who don't believe in Jesus are not in this brotherhood. There's no universal
brotherhood. But there is a universal neighborhood. That is every human being created in the image
of God is my neighbor, which means I am called -- this is radical stuff. I am called to love
every human being on the face of this earth as much as I love myself, even if he's not
a part of the brotherhood, even if he's not in the household of faith. He's still my neighbor.
I mentioned this recently in a sermon. When we see people in need, we don't ask them how
they got there. Our job is not to condemn the person who has
fallen down in the gutter and say, "How did you get there?" If they're in the gutter,
it's our job to help them out of the gutter. Why? Because we would want to be helped, and
that person's my neighbor, and I'm supposed to love my neighbor like I love myself. Jesus
says, "Do this, and live."
