Reflection by The Rev'd Dr Deborah Broome

The Good Samaritan

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”                

Luke 10:25-37

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is very familiar – we might almost say too familiar. The “Good Samaritan” who stops to help someone who’s broken down on the highway, someone who’s maybe come out without their purse or their phone, or someone who’s suffered some other sort of mishap is a bit of a stereotype. The problem is that we lose some of the bite to Jesus’ quirky story if we aren’t shocked by the ending. We so glibly talk about Good Samaritans and forget how appalling it would be for Jesus’ original audience to have the words “good” and “Samaritan” next to each other in the same sentence. It’s like saying the good Al Qaeda terrorist, the good meth dealer, the good homophobic troll on the internet. Samaritans were looked down on, despised.

Who would be the Samaritan for us today? Who’s most different from us? Who do we see as social outcasts, as somehow unclean, as religiously inferior to us? Who does all the wrong things?  Who would we least like to compare ourselves with? Because that’s what’s going on here. That’s who Jesus is making the hero of the story, the one who shows the compassion that we maybe don’t. 

And we also miss the point of the story if we condemn the priest and the Levite too hard. The priest knew about how to love God with all one’s heart, soul, strength and mind – and part of loving God was keeping God’s commandments. If the unfortunate victim was already dead, and the priest touched him, he’d become contaminated by death – unclean – and unable to offer the religious sacrifices and participate in worship on behalf of the people. So the priest avoids the contact, as does the Levite, a temple assistant. The priest and the Levite act the same way a doctor might if she’s preparing to perform an operation only she can do and sees a man on the side of the road who might be already dead. This is triage, the sort of complex and sometimes painful ethical decisions that happen everyday. For them it was a choice between one duty and another duty, between one great commandment and another. And they chose loving God over loving their neighbour. 

But in responding to the question “who is my neighbour?” Jesus’ story says there’s no-one who’s not my neighbour. A neighbour isn’t defined by blood ties, or nationality, or religious affiliation, or by being “someone like us.” Neighbours are defined by those who need help, and those who give it. And sometimes our neighbour is the person we’d least expect.

Who proved to be a neighbour to the man who was beaten and left for dead? Jesus turns the lawyer’s question inside out — not “Who is my neighbour?” but “Will I be a neighbour?” In doing so, he teaches us that in God’s community, everyone is our neighbour — especially the person we’d rather avoid. Loving our neighbour isn’t optional — it’s the clearest expression of our love for God. In the end, loving your neighbour is loving your God.