A story to make us new people

In reply 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 travelled, 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 neighbour 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.”

Don’t ask who your neighbour is. Ask who you can be a neighbour to.

That’s the essence of Jesus’ teaching in his wonderful story of the Good Samaritan.

An “expert in the law” (what we might call a “theologian”) has challenged him to sum up what he must do “to inherit eternal life”. Jesus throws the question back at him, as if to say, “You’re the legal expert, not me – why don’t you tell me?” The man’s reply is standard Jewish teaching – love God with all your being, and “love your neighbour as yourself” (that’s Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 put together).

Well said, says Jesus. “Do this and you will live”. End of conversation.

Except that it isn’t. The man seems to want to get one up on Jesus, so he goes on to ask for a definition of that word “neighbour”. The person next door? The people in my “neighbourhood”? My fellow Jews as a whole? Probably that last definition is the one he is expecting.

But what does Jesus give him? No definition at all – but a story. It’s a story about various people behaving badly, and one person behaving beautifully. And Jesus rounds it off with another question: Can you see a neighbour in my story?

Well, there’s only one candidate! Only problem: he’s not a Jew at all, but a Samaritan. One commentator writes that “the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other like poison”, so I imagine that the lawyer is shocked rigid, but rather than say plainly “Well, the Samaritan, of course” – words he would choke on - he mumbles “the one who had mercy on him”.

Like any great story, the more you read it the more you find in it. Let’s ask the question: What is it about? Let me pick out various strands.

First – though perhaps easy to overlook – it’s about human wickedness.

At the heart of the story is an act of sheer violence: an innocent man is attacked by robbers, stripped naked, beaten and left lying half-dead in the heat of the sun. Can you imagine the few minutes of terror as he desperately tries to defend himself? the cries? the sickening sound of blows? the blood on the ground? This sort of thing, apparently, wasn’t uncommon on that lonely, desolate road “from Jerusalem to Jericho”.

Perhaps the robbers would have tried to justify their act on the grounds of poverty or misfortune. But… wickedness is wickedness; or, to use a shorter word, sin in sin.

I don’t suppose that anyone reading this would be guilty of such an act of violence. But this is human nature, and so it is part of all of us. Remember how Jesus said that hatred is tantamount to murder, and lust to adultery (Matthew 5:21-30). We have all sinned “and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), however civilised and outwardly well-behaved we might be.

So, yes, none of us would dream of doing such a horrible thing; but let’s make no mistake, none of us either is free from the reality of darkness deep down in our hearts, and the need to confess to God.

Do any of us need to do some repenting today?

Second, this is a story about human suffering.

I’ve tried to conjure up a picture of the traveller lying broken and helpless on the road. I don’t think it’s stretching things too far to suggest that he is a symbol of the many millions of people in our world that we tend to think of as “victims”.

They come in all sorts of types, not just victims of crime: the hungry, poor and homeless, of course; the sick and disabled; those under the heel of political or religious authorities; those, in a world of great riches, who live - or should we say survive - at the bottom of the pile.

Those of us who live comfortable and prosperous lives are no more deserving than they would be of the good things we enjoy. But for the accident of birth or circumstances, it could be us lying broken on the road.

The question is obvious: Do we see? And if we do, do we care? And if we do, do we do anything about it?

This leads neatly into the next strand we find in this story – it’s about religion gone rotten. But I think we will have to leave that until next time…

Loving Father, thank you for Jesus’ wonderful story. Help me to absorb it into the very depths of my soul, so that it may help me to become a newer, better person. Amen.