Justifying

Because the scholar of the law wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise, a Levite came to the place and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was a neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “the one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and to likewise.” (Luke 10. 29-37)

For our reflection today, we have the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that has been described as one of the most beautiful of all the gospel parables. Knowledge of the parable is so widespread that it has provided an addition to our lexicon, giving us the word “good samaritan,” meant to describe anyone who selflessly helps another in need.

The context of the parable is important. Luke tells us that a scholar of the Law approached Jesus to test him, apparently less interested in what Jesus might answer to his inquiry and more interested in tripping him up, an attitude that we regularly find among the Pharisees in the gospels. The same incident is also found in the works of Mark and Matthew. However, Mark does not say that the lawyer’s intent is to test Jesus.

The query that the lawyer presents to Jesus concerns what he should do in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus turns the tables on the man and asks him to provide an answer based on “what is written in the law.” After all, the lawyer is supposed to be the expert. The response in all three synoptic gospels is the double commandment to love God and to love neighbor. One difference in Luke’s version is that he, unlike the other evangelists, does not make one commandment first and the other second, but rather combines them into a single command, in this way making each of them have the same value.

Another difference in Luke’s telling of the incident is that the lawyer doesn’t stop there. We’re told that “he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, ‘Who is my neighbor?’” That question allows Jesus to pivot to the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that is only found here in the Gospel of Luke, a specialness that it shares with the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, these stories also found nowhere else.

Some scholars find a parallel in the Second Book of Chronicles in which a prophet of Samaria chastises the army of Ephrem for taking as captives and subjugating the defeated troops of Judah. Hearing the prophet’s chastisement, the army “left their captives and plunder before the whole assembly [of Samaritans] who then “proceeded to help the captives.”

The Samaritans’ care of the defeated and the injured is spelled out in detail, the writer telling us that “all of them who were naked they clothed from the spoils; they clothed them, put sandals on their feet, gave them food and drink, anointed them, and all who were weak they set on donkeys. They brought them to Jericho, the City of Palms, to their kinfolk. Then they returned to Samaria.” 

Without a doubt, there is a close similarity between that historical event in Hebrew history and the story that Luke has Jesus offer to the scholar of the Law. Of course, the similarity does not weaken or compromise the force of the story as told by Jesus, but only accentuates again the importance of showing care and compassion for others in dire straits.

The dynamics of the story are straightforward and as applicable to our times as it was to Jesus’ time. A man is waylaid by robbers on his way to Jericho, a town seventeen miles from Jerusalem. So far as Jesus is concerned, he could be any man because no details or description of him are provided–not his nationality, not his religion, not his social standing. That is our first clue that Jesus intends him to be anybody, not allowing us to pigeonhole him or put forth reasons for his being beaten up by thugs.

The next segment of the story presents us with two Jewish people who also are on the same road and, seeing the injured man, do nothing. The first to pass by is a priest and the second is a Levite, an assistant to the priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Again, Jesus offers no details on why they ignore the man who clearly is in need of help. He simply says that they “saw him and passed by on the other side.” 

Those damning words make it clear that their inaction cannot be excused because they didn’t see the man. They saw him and chose to keep on going, putting a safe distance between the injured man and themselves. The fact that Jesus offers no rationale for their behavior is not meant to allow us to offer a ton of excuses, a natural tendency for us to do, especially since we have done the same many times in our own lives.

Instead, Jesus gives no excuses because he believes there are no good ones. And he knows excuses simply allow us the luxury of believing we’re good and upstanding people when, in fact, we fall short on a daily basis. So, he wipes off the board any excuse we might make, stating the bald truth that these two men, both of whom were religious leaders, their status leading others to believe they were righteous people, did nothing to help the injured man who was bleeding out on the side of the road.

The third part of the story shifts our focus to a third traveler who also comes down the road. Here Jesus is quick to tell us that he was a Samaritan. For anyone hearing the story in Jesus’ time, the fact that the traveler is identified as a Samaritan would have immediately caused a sharp intake of breath. For centuries, the people living in Samaria, a strip of land separating the southern part of Judea from the northern part known as Galilee, were considered outcasts and half-breeds, the Jewish animosity towards them legendary for centuries past. 

If it were not shocking enough that Jesus should include a Samaritan in his story, it was earth-shaking that he proceeds to put the Samaritan in a much more favorable light than the priest or the Levite, stating that this foreigner went out of his way to help the suffering man. It is important that we see how Jesus describes at length all the things that the Samaritan did for the man in the ditch.

First, he “was moved with compassion at the sight,” meaning he felt in his guts a painful reaction to the suffering of another human being. Then “he approached the victim,” the opposite behavior of the priest and the Levite who moved to the opposite side of the road, getting as far away from the man as they could. Then the Samaritan poured oil and wine over the wounds and bandaged them, lifted the man up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him.”

It didn’t end there. “The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’” Again, Jesus is purposeful in offering this long list of actions that the Samaritan takes in order to assure the well-being of the stranger he finds on the side of the road. He wants to show that the Samaritan did something, or better stated, he did a lot of things, not satisfied with simply bandaging up the man and passing the problem onto somebody else. 

In other words, inaction in the face of need is not an option so far as Jesus is concerned. Those who choose inaction as did the priest and the Levite are cast in an ugly light and their failure to act disallows them any pretense or claim to righteousness or holiness. In short, one who does nothing to alleviate the suffering of another, choosing inaction over action, has failed the first law of love–doing something for another.

Jesus ends the story with a question to the scholar of the law. “Which of these three, in your opinion, was a neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” When the scholar has no choice but to answer, “the one who treated him with mercy,” Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” It is not insignificant that the lawyer cannot bring himself to call the Samaritan by name, but can only say, “the one who treated him with mercy.” We are left to believe that his heart has changed little even by this story.

After all, Luke tells us that the man “wished to justify himself” to Jesus, a word that means he wanted to come off as righteous and law-abiding when, in fact, he was quite the opposite, proving himself to be self-righteous, a sure sign of his moral vacuity. He, like the priest and the Levite, is empty of compassion, instead filled with justifications and excuses for not showing mercy.

As I see it, there is no small irony in the fact that the parable of the Good Samaritan is the best known of Jesus’ parables while, at the same time, it is the least practiced one. And that is going to take some explaining. There truly is something troubling in realizing that we simultaneously admire the Good Samaritan while at the same time fail miserably to imitate his actions.

The truth of the matter is that if there ever was a parable to address the needs for our times, then this is the one. In telling this story, Jesus makes it clear that our neighbor is not only the person who lives next door, but also includes all people, regardless of their race or religion, regardless of their place of origin or their documentation of citizenship. God’s love is not measured out only to those who meet our standards of acceptability, but extends to all of humanity.

If we truly want to participate in this all-embracing love of God, then we don’t do it by dividing people, demeaning people, or demanding that people who are unlike us in some way aren’t deserving of compassion. Spend fifteen minutes listening to the airwaves in this country and it leaves no doubt that we are more like the lawyer who is quick to justify his moral vacuousness and much less like the Samaritan who needs nothing more than the sight of someone in need to rush in and help. 

In David Livingstone Smith’s eye-opening and heart-rending book entitled “Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others,” he offers this one sentence indictment of humanity, writing, “Homo sapiens are the only animal capable of cruelty and war.” Needless to say, he brings the proof, detailing centuries of man’s inhumanity to man, leaving us to ask ourselves why people who publicly boast of following the path of Jesus end up being nothing like Christ. 

As I said, the parable of the Good Samaritan should be a wake-up call, but the sad fact is that it has been around a long time and hearts have pretty much stayed unchanged over the course of the centuries, perhaps even worsening as we continue to rob people of their dignity, beat them up with our slurs and slights, and throw them into a prison jokingly called Alligator Alcatraz where they cry out in pain, their suffering and terror ignored as we justify our wrongdoing by a thousand-and-one calculations. 

In short, it would do all of us good to listen closely to the parable of the Good Samaritan today, asking ourselves why so many of our neighbors are left in pain on the side of the road while we walk by on the opposite side and do absolutely nothing to help them. I would suggest that it is high time for us to do a moral reckoning of our inaction when Jesus clearly tells us to “go and do likewise” as did the Good Samaritan. 

–Jeremy Myers