The Good Samaritan
Text: Luke 10:25-37
Preached by Pastor Phil Hughes at American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah
September 15, 2024
We have begun a series of sermons on parables of Jesus. The four Gospels give us about forty parables that Jesus spoke. Parables are small stories from common life that our Lord told to illustrate how God works and what God wants. Jesus would often teach with parables.
At first hearing these parables don’t sound like very much. They talk about seeds growing in soil, women finding lost coins, someone finding valuable treasure. Harmless enough. In the parables Jesus rarely mentions God. Or so people thought. Jesus was actually talking very much about God.
The parables aren’t “five principles to enter the kingdom of God”. They are more subtle. You don’t take notes or create an outline. You listen and think. It takes a receptive heart and open ears to get what Jesus means.
One of the best known parables is what we call “The Good Samaritan.” Luke is the only gospel writer who gave us this parable. Jesus didn’t call it “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.” Jesus didn’t give any titles to his parables. “The Good Samaritan” is the title people have given to this parable. It’s interesting that the word “good” never appears.
There are groups that use the name Samaritan that do fantastic relief work in our world. But the people listening to Jesus would have never thought of a Samaritan as “good.”
Jews hated Samaritans like many in Israel today hate Palestinians, and vice versa. Extreme animosity between Samaritans and Jews had gone on for hundreds of years. Jews saw Samaritans as having a mixed-up religion. Samaritans believed in the first five books of the Old Testament, but not the rest. Samaritans had their own temple. Jews saw Samaritans as ethnically impure, being the result of Jews who had inter-married with other races.
How badly did Jews hate the Samaritans? Not long before telling this parable Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem and sent some messengers ahead of him to a Samaritan village so that he could stop there. But the people told the messengers that since Jesus was Jewish and headed to Jerusalem he was not welcome there. So James and John ask Jesus if he wanted them to call fire down from heaven and blow that Samaritan village – men, women and children – to smithereens.[1] Jesus tells them not to.
When Jesus first sends out the disciples he specifically instructs them not to go to the Samaritans.[2] Not that Jesus hated Samaritans but he probably knew what would happen if his followers went into such territory.
The Samaritans had opposed the restoration of Jerusalem and the building of the second temple after the Jewish exile. The Samaritan temple was on their holy mountain which was Mt. Gerizim. One time the Jewish high priest led the burning of the Samaritan temple to the ground. In the early part of the first century the Samaritans broke into the Jewish temple and scattered the bones of a corpse inside the temple during Passover. Another time the Samaritans massacred a group of Jewish pilgrims.
So the shock of the parable is that the one who is the neighbor, the one who is compassionate and shows mercy is a Samaritan! This would blow the Jewish mind.
In our day the parable is taken to mean when someone is in the ditch, or we see someone in need, go help them. Jesus was saying something much more than that.
Why did Jesus tell the parable? Well, he told the parable because a lawyer – a religious scholar of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Torah – stood up to test Jesus. That’s what it says. This expert on the religious law asked how he could have eternal life, but we are told he really was more interested in trying to see what Jesus was made of, and if he was of the same rank and file as the religious legal experts. How does Jesus measure up? Let’s throw a little Bible test at him.
Jesus asks the lawyer what he reads in the Torah which are the first five books of the Old Testament. The lawyer quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, two of the most important verses in all the Bible.
“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” And “…love your neighbor as yourself…”
Jesus tells him he has given the right answer and if he implements this into his life he will surely get to heaven. But the lawyer didn’t stop there. It says he wanted to justify himself. He wants to win the point. Did he want to display his own goodness and impress Jesus with his record of loving his neighbor? Did he want to show that he is already doing what is required in the law and should be assured of eternal life?
We can be quite good at justifying ourselves. We think of all the reasons we are such good people and why our behavior is just fine. We know how to justify our lifestyles, our thinking, how we treat or don’t treat other people. And so we bargain and negotiate with Jesus about our attitudes.
Some Jewish writings said that only the Jews should be considered neighbors. Samaritans were not included in the Jewish definition of neighbor. So maybe this lawyer wanted to justify his lack of love for some kinds of people.[3]
The lawyer asks Jesus “who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers by telling this parable.
It begins with a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. There really was and is a road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It was called “the Bloody Pass”. It was 17-miles of danger, with caves all along the way where bandits hid waiting to pounce on travelers. Violent encounters were not uncommon. The man is attacked, beaten, and left for dead.
In Jesus’ parable a priest is the first one to come down the road. Now, if you were lying with a broken leg, bleeding from the head, shaking with nerves along some side street and you saw Pastor Phil coming along wouldn’t you feel good about that?
Priests were men of prayer, steeped in God’s Word, leaders of worship and knew the heart of God. This priest sees this hurting man…and goes out of his way to pass on the other side.
A Levite comes down the road. Levites took care of the house of the Lord. They sang in the choir and on the Praise Team. They served as ushers and greeters. They helped the priests and were an order of priests themselves. But this Levite sees the man and passes by on the other side.
Both the religious people pass by. Those who know to love God and neighbor pass by. But they just don’t come, take a look, and pass by. The word means “went-past-far-off”.[4] They didn’t come anywhere near. They kept as far away as they possibly could.
Then Jesus says a Samaritan comes, and we have learned what they are about, right? He also sees the man but it says the Samaritan took pity on him. The word is used in the New Testament for feeling compassion. It comes from the word for the bowels or the guts. It is to feel for someone deep in your gut so that it almost hurts.
Notice the action of the Samaritan. He doesn’t pass by but goes to the man.
Bandages his wounds
Pours oil and wine on them, which were medicines of that day.
Puts the man on his own donkey - into his own car
Takes him to the Comfort Inn and takes care of him
Now doesn’t this guy have places to go and things to do? Doesn’t he have a schedule to keep?
This Samaritan gives his own money to the inn keeper telling him to look after the beat-up man.
He promises to come back and pay any extra expense.
And you can just hear the gasps and see the big eyes as Jesus tells this parable. Not that he was doing good, but that this was a Samaritan. That’s the sharp edge of this parable. That Jesus has a Samaritan doing what God wants.
By the end of this exchange with the religious lawyer Jesus has changed the question from “who is my neighbor?” to “who was the neighbor?”. Now the lawyer isn’t thinking of justifying himself but is faced with having to follow the example of mercy of a stinking, no-good, just-this-side-of-hell Samaritan. The lawyer wonders if he has to love the Samaritan and he finds the Samaritan is the very one who teaches the true meaning of the law of love and what it means to be a neighbor.
Does Jesus know how to mess with our well-ordered worlds or what? We think we know who is on the inside and who is on the outside, who is good and who is bad, and now this story about this Samaritan.
Here is what this parable teaches us:
The parable teaches us about compassion which is the first thing the Samaritan felt after he saw the man. Compassion is when we go beyond merely looking at injured, half-dead people, and we enter their world with care, love, and mercy. It says the Samaritan’s compassion was stirred when he saw the man.
When Jesus saw a grieving widow who had just lost her son it says Jesus had compassion on her.[5] In the parable of what we call the Prodigal Son, the father sees the returning son and is filled with compassion for him.[6] In Exodus, it is when the Lord sees the misery of his people in Egypt that he comes down and near them to rescue them.[7]
The Samaritan’s deep compassion came from what he saw. Maybe I don’t need another Bible lesson or more life-coaching. Maybe I need a cornea transplant. Maybe I need to see who is my neighbor, who it is that has a claim on me, who I should be noticing. I need to see people as God sees them which will probably mean a lot less labeling and categorizing. I need to be more aware of who is in my path and who is around me that needs my love, my compassion, my help.
Often that can be those closest to us. It can be someone who lives under our very roof. It can be a person who we are sitting with in worship. It can be someone we have been seeing every day for years. Or it may be someone unknown to us who God unexpectedly puts in our path.
Compassion notices and responds. First, we have to see. Then we can act in mercy.
God, give us new vision and fresh faith.[8]
Second, this parable shows us something of how God wants us to live. Jesus’ cross and resurrection are to free us from having to earn our way to God. But it doesn’t free us from showing God’s mercy toward others. How we live matters to God. He didn’t die so that we could be excused from loving our neighbor. He died so that we can live in the way God wants, and Jesus is showing us in this parable how to live.
Thirdly, this parable doesn’t say what we believe doesn’t matter. It does. But it softens what we might call religious formalism. We can have all the right theological beliefs and correct biblical answers. But faith/religion/spirituality/being right with God is much more than just correct belief. The lawyer who entices Jesus into speaking this parable knows his Bible. He knows that he is to love God and love his neighbor. But apparently he lacks mercy. He lacks going and doing.
“For him, God is the God of Israel, and neighbours are Jewish neighbours. For Jesus (and for Luke, who highlights this theme), Israel’s God is the God of grace for the whole world, and a neighbour is anybody in need.”[9]
Why did the priest and Levite pass by as far away as possible? Probably because they saw what looked to them like a dead person, and the holiness code of the Jewish law found in the Bible was clear that if you came into contact with a dead person you became ritually impure. You couldn’t enter the temple if you are unclean. You couldn’t be in public worship if you are unclean. They let their need for purity keep them from doing what God wanted.
The story of the “good Samaritan” is often used to show the goodness of heart of the rescuer. But Jesus is also saying something about the danger of religion becoming so formal, and so full of rules and regulations, so correct, that it keeps us from loving, showing mercy, and being compassionate to others.
Lastly, this parable is certainly about living faith. Jesus ends the parable by saying, “Go and do likewise.” Go and do like the one who had mercy on the half-dead man. Jesus is teaching actual living of mercy.
It’s like Jesus was saying, “Mr. Lawyer, can I ask you now, which one was the neighbor?” And Mr. Lawyer says, “The one who showed mercy.” The word “good” is not used in Jesus’ parable. The word that is used is “mercy.”
When Jesus was criticized by religious people for eating and spending time with sinners and those who lived on the wrong side of the tracks, he said to them, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’”[10] He was quoting what God the Father said through the prophet Hosea when he said “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Right theological and biblical convictions are so important. But if people are not treated with love, compassion, and mercy we are not living in what God desires. We can never lose sight of people – all people. It’s like Jesus is asking, “if a Samaritan is doing this, and we know what they are like, then what about you who claim to be of my Father in heaven?”
And by the end Jesus turns the question from “who is my neighbor” to “who was the neighbor?” Which one of the three people who saw the man lying on the road was the neighbor? The one you would least expect to be the neighbor.
And that’s the shock, and the power, of this parable. If it was just about doing good Jesus would have told the story with just any old person coming and helping this half-dead victim. But he intentionally uses a Samaritan who had mercy on the man who was beaten and left for dead.
We imagine the lawyer a few days later still thinking about this encounter with Jesus and asking himself, “Was he suggesting a Samaritan might be more loving and neighborly than me? That Samaritans could possibly have value? That I’m not all I think I am and don’t know as much as I thought I knew?”
I suppose Jesus could have engaged in a Bible quoting session, or theological discussion with the lawyer about who our neighbors are. But instead he told a parable. And that parable has infiltrated minds and hearts ever since, hasn’t it.
Jesus tells parables to illustrate the kingdom of God. And in the kingdom of God what God does, who God accepts, and what God is like is always a surprise. Those who are citizens of the kingdom know how to “Go and do likewise.”
Prayer: Mighty God, we thank you that Luke included this parable in his gospel. We want to take it to heart. Move us beyond mere religious correctness to true living of our faith. We repent of assuming certain people are incapable of and outside of your love. Teach us more of your kingdom. In the name of the king, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
[1] Luke 9:51-56
[2] Matt. 10:5
[3] See Living Bible translation
[4] Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant, p,72
[5] Luke 7:13
[6] Luke 15:20
[7] Exodus 3:7,8
[8] David Lose, www.workingpreacher.org, The Good Samaritan – Seeing and Doing
[9] Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone, 128
[10] Matthew 9:13