The Good Samaritan | Jesus and Nonviolence | Part 5 | Courtney Clark
Transcript: The Good Samaritan
We’ve been digging into Jesus and non-violence over the course of the last several weeks. We’ve had some really interesting conversations and I so appreciate all of your input as we dig into discussions. When it comes to living in the third way part of it is resisting oppression with non-violence like we’ve talked about extensively, but it also means loving your neighbor as Jesus defined it in Luke 10. This is the part that we live in the day to day, this is the part that I would argue is harder than resisting oppression. This is the part that requires patience, and setting our own views aside. Let’s start by reading the story that everyone probably knows by heart, the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37.
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 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. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 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. 35 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.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Today we equate the term Good Samaritan with someone who does good deeds. We have entire charity organizations named after this; Good Samaritan Hospitals, Samaritans International, Good Samaritan Donkey Organizations, Samaritan’s Purse. This is a parable that is so well known everyone can recall the story just by hearing the word Samaritan. It’s everywhere, wether you grew up in church or not you know this story and the ideas we have equated to it. This focus on the Samaritan’s good deed while not necessarily wrong, diminishes the story. There’s a lot more here we miss when we’re focused on just the charitable act of this person. So we have to go back and hear the story (as best we can) as a first century jewish audience would have heard it.
First and foremost, Jesus tells this story in response to a question by a lawyer. We find this question in verse 25 where the lawyer says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s important we note that throughout the book of Luke lawyers are painted as not the most upstanding citizens. We get a few notes of this in how Luke sets up this conversation among Jesus and the lawyer. From the get go Luke is saying this lawyer is testing Jesus with his question. Earlier in Luke we see the use of this word to test being used when Satan tests Jesus (Luke 4:2). By using this language Luke is putting this lawyer into the position of the devil in the story. He’s already the bad guy. Secondly this lawyer calls Jesus teacher, where those who followed him and trusted his authority called him Lord. This address suggests that the lawyer doesn’t quite respect Jesus’s authority. And lastly, the way this question is phrased it’s as if the lawyer is looking for a check list and not really making a sincere effort to understand Jesus’s way of living. Basically it’s as if the lawyer is asking Jesus a question he thinks he knows the answer to, as a means to see if Jesus really knows what he’s talking about.
Jesus responds to this question in true Jesus form, by asking a question in return, “What is written in the law?” He’s using what the lawyer knows, the law, to push him to answer his own question. He’s wanting to know not just what the law says word for word, but how this lawyer interprets it. The law he’s referring to is what we now call the Torah, which doesn’t talk about eternal life. It more deals with how to live in the present here and now. The main concern of the Torah is how to love your neighbor as yourself not how to get into heaven. The lawyer responds with quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 saying,
“You shall love the lord your God with all your soul,, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself”.
Of course the lawyer’s answer is correct. Jesus tells him as much. But the lawyer’s question hasn’t been answered, so he pushes and asks Jesus to define who his neighbor is. I think based on what we know abut the lawyer he’s hoping by defining the term Jesus will leave room for the lawyer to interpret who’s NOT included in the answer.
Torah defines the neighbor as “the alien who resides with you to be citizens among you”; this is actually found not long after the verse the lawyer quoted from Leviticus, found in 19:34. In other words Torah defines both neighbor and foreigner as those to be loved. But rather than just saying this or arguing semantics Jesus answers with a story.
In this story Jesus doesn’t define the person who is robbed. This is simply a person walking down from Jerusalem. We don’t know their name, their job, their social status, their financial situation. Any statements on the identity of this person are simply speculation. I think Jesus left it vague on purpose. This road from Jerusalem to Jericho was well known for being dangerous and difficult. So by claiming this as the backdrop Jesus is setting the scene. Anyone hearing this story would know what that journey was like wether they had traveled it or not. Much like when someone says they got lost in Oak Cliff we go ooh! We can picture how scary that might have been even if we’ve never been there ourselves. Just based on stories we’ve heard. So this person find themselves in a ditch in what’s a known shady party of town, a victim of a violent crime left for dead.
Next we are introduced to characters as they pass by. A priest and a levite. This is where stereo types get in the way. We think we know who these people are and what they’re supposed to represent. But what would Jesus’s audience have heard? Who were these people in real time? Most of us have heard them described as members of the elite priestly class. But in reality some priests and many levites were actually very poor. Most interpretations of this story claim they passed this person by because of cleansing rituals and requirements as part of their jobs. That coming in contact with a corpse would render them unclean and unable to perform their priestly duties. But jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine states that this in incorrect. Because cleansing rituals would have been irrelevant in this case. In the very least people in these positions are required to provide aide when they come across an accident, like a nurse, police officer, or doctor would be required to assist if they come across a car accident even if they’re technically off duty. Secondly because they’re coming DOWN from Jerusalem rather than going up to it, we can assume they’re going home after serving in the temple and no longer need to abide by strict cleansing rituals required to enter into the temple.
If we strip away the narrative that the priest and the Levite are avoiding this person because of religion we don’t know exactly why they didn’t stop, we can only guess. Martin Luther King claims the two don’t stop out of fear. Saying,
“If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But then the Good Samaritan thought something different. He thought, if I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
So if the two don’t stop because of some religious duty, why give them religious titles in the first place? Remember Jesus is making this story up, he could have named any random person. Why name a priest and a Levite? Jesus’s parables operate often in a ‘rule of 3’. Which is a grouping of items into sets of 3 so as to establish a pattern. Think Goldilocks and the 3 bears, or the 3 little pigs. This system of delivery is setting the listener/reader up to expect what’s coming next. The jewish audience would have been familiar with the common grouping of Priest, Levites, and Israelite. This would have been automatic, they were expecting the Israelite to be the one to swoop in and save the day. But since Jesus is telling a parable and the intention of parables is to provoke Jesus changes things up. Instead of naming the expected Israelite he names a Samaritan. And although we think of Samaritan’s as good and saintly oppressed minority. A first century Jew, would not have. This would have been akin to someone to say saying “Larry, Curly, and Osama bin Ladin” a very unexpected jump from the expected. Jesus’s original audience would have seen the Samaritan as an enemy. Not an oppressed minority, but one doing the oppressing.
Samaritans and Jews each think the other has gone off the rails and are interpreting their biblical texts all wrong. They have split off from one another and rather than finding a way to work through their differences in belief they hate each other and want the other eliminated. Samaritans think Torah should be the only sacred texts, and Jews think the Torah is just he beginning.
This is where the story really shifts gears and changes pace. Where Jesus gives no detail of the injured person in the ditch, he gives extensive detail to the Samaritan. We know the nationality of this person, we know they are of at least moderate wealth (they have the money and means to travel with an animal. Are carrying oil which wasn’t something most people would have ready access to. They have negation skills and are able to barter for the injured to stay in an inn until they can recover promising to reimburse any additional expense), and then Jesus goes into extensive detail about how the Samaritan cares for the person in the ditch.
The Samaritan does more than just check to see if the person in the ditch is alive, they offer long term care, an ongoing sacrifice. This demonstrates that loving the neighbor is continual and involves trust. The Samaritan trusts the innkeeper will follow through and the person in the ditch trusts the Samaritan will follow through.
Now we return to the conversation between Jesus and the lawyer. Where Jesus asks, who was the neighbor here? The lawyer is so wrapped in his hatred he can’t even answer by saying the Samaritan, instead he says the one who showed mercy. Jesus tells him to go and DO likewise. Not go and be, but go and do. Loving god and loving your neighbor are actions not just simply ways of being. We don’t know what the lawyer does with this information because that’s where Luke stops recording. We can only know how we will respond.
Jesus is defining the neighbor here as the enemy. The Jews would have seen the Samaritan as the enemy, yet Jesus is painting the enemy as someone capable of doing good. Rather than doing harm as was expected, the Samaritan is the one to show love and compassion. Something no one would have expected. Again Jesus is urging his followers to recognize the humanity in even those who hate us, and see their potential for good. Amy Jill-Levine poses this question in regards to the parable,
“Can we finally agree that it is better to acknowledge the humanity and the potential to do good in the enemy, rather than to choose death? Imagine the potential of being able to bind up our enemies wounds, or to have them do the same to us.”
This part of the world is still in conflict with one another. We could paint this story in modern terms and it would have the same impact as it did to Jesus’s original audience. Samaria today is what we know as Occupied Palestine. The traveler would have been an Israeli Jew on their way from Jerusalem to Jericho and are attacked by robbers. Those who pass who should help would be a jewish medic from Israeli defense force and a missionary from the Presbyterian church on mission from the US. And the Samaritan would be a Palestinian Muslim, a Hamas sympathizer. Hamas is a political party who looks for the destruction of Israel. The least expected person to stop and help. Neither party is particularly marginalized, rather they have equal hate for one another. So in today’s terms this story would be titled The Good Hamas Member” which provokes an entirely new meaning than how we have defined Good Samaritan. Let’s choose life.