Luke 10:25-37
“Right Answer”
July 10, 2022
What do you call the story we hear Jesus tell in today’s reading?
The Good Samaritan, right?
It even is labeled that by certain editors of certain Bibles so it’s easier to find because we have taken the concept of the Good Samaritan to heart as a culture.
Maybe some of you have visited Samaritan hospital over in Troy.
We have what are called Good Samaritan laws that protect us when we stop and help folks we don’t know.
But let’s think about what Jesus specifically was saying to the Jews who would have been his audience.
Before getting to Jesus’ favorite teaching tool, the parable, he is questioned by a lawyer who is asking the same question that so many have asked since.
What is the secret to eternal life?
And in true Jesus-style, he answers the question with a question, returning it back to the lawyer, knowing that he knows the answer for himself.
In this way Jesus was able to get the man to think for himself as well as give voice to his beliefs.
The lawyer knew what scripture had to say, specifically Leviticus and Deuteronomy – what we call the Great Commandment about loving God with everything we have and our neighbor just as we love ourselves.
Interestingly, both Mark and Matthew have Jesus saying the words of the Great Commandment while here it is the lawyer saying them.
Sometimes we know the right answer but what do we do with it?
Maybe that’s why the lawyer comes back with yet another question for Jesus.
“Who is my neighbor?”
And Jesus then goes off in what would have been an unexpected direction.
He has the priest and the Levite, both respected authorities that the lawyer and everyone else listening would have believed them to act in a holy way as observant men who knew the right thing to do.
This would be in contrast with the Samaritan who would have been seen by as, if not enemy, then really out of favor with God.
They had their own temple and their own separate priests which the Jews in Jerusalem saw as fake.
Samaritans and Jews really did not have any use for each other.
This Samaritan would have been the last person the lawyer would have chosen to do the right and heroic and compassionate thing after the priest and Levite did not.
Notice that at the end when Jesus once again poses a question, this time about which one of the three acted as a neighbor, the lawyer could not even say the word Samaritan but instead referred to him as the one who showed the injured man mercy.
Jesus here is shaking up the norms that define who the good guys and bad guys are.
We like to think we have that figured out and then Jesus shakes it like a snow globe and when everything settles, we’re left knowing that we don’t really know what any of us is capable of.
Even though Jesus never refers to him directly as “The Good Samaritan” he does make sure we can view him that way.
Imagine right now who you would think of as the last person you could ever call “good?”
Do you have someone in mind – take a moment, who pops into your head?
Once envisioned, we must recognize that there is good in every person but that it’s what we do with that goodness that matters.
This parable is all about compassion which one writer describes as “the open-heart meeting suffering, the deep wish for the removal of suffering.
Compassion literally means “with passion,” it is the healing agent that makes it bearable to see the truth of suffering within us, around us.” (Dale Borglum, “Cultivating Compassion,” Breast Cancer Action Newsletter, February 1994)
How do we become more compassionate?
It could be that we stop looking away from suffering, especially the suffering of folks who don’t look or sound like us.
Maybe we practice close by – with those we know who are battling addictions or loneliness.
With those who others steer clear of.
To view the hurting ones with the eyes of the Samaritan is to feel the pain of the other and wanting to do whatever it takes to help end their suffering.
Who is it that moves you in such a way that you want to do something – to follow the directive of Jesus in showing mercy?
This parable is one of the best known of Jesus’ and you’ve probably heard it many times and could tell the parable yourself.
Pretend this is the very first time you’ve heard it.
Who would you be in the story?
I’m guessing most of us really want to be the hero – the Good Samaritan.
But do we have a little bit of the Levite or the Priest in us that wants to look the other way when seeing suffering?
We definitely don’t want to be the robbers who take what they want with whatever force is necessary and leave pain and suffering in our wake.
How about the innkeeper?
He gets to help but with very little risk – that is the safe approach.
Maybe we all have some of all of these characters in us and we have to figure out which ones we will feed with our actions.
How do we show love for neighbors more broadly defined – not just the ones that we know and feel comfortable around.
This parable is not just a “feel good” story.
Jesus is shaking up the predictable here about who is worthy of help and who has the potential to help.
There is so much presumption and probably not enough questions about each other.
In order to make sense of the world, we have probably categorized whole swaths of the world into good and bad, deserving and undeserving, kind and cruel.
Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way:
“We are all capable of surprising each other, every single day, and a single act of kindness has the power to call a whole history of against-ness into question…(Jesus) knew that sometimes you have to start telling a different kind of story before a different kind of future can unfold.” (Always a Guest, 90)
Perhaps the right answer is that we can change the story from one of hurt and hopelessness, one act of compassion at a time.
Amen.