This Sunday we had one of the most famous passages in the Bible: The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This is one of those familiar stories that I can easily listen to with one ear tied behind my… well, you get the idea: because I’ve heard it so many times, I don’t always give it my full attention. And I’ve heard so many homilies preached on it that I quite easily find myself drifting off during the preaching, wondering about breakfast, whether there is enough buttermilk to make biscuits… Do we have any flour? What about tortillas? We have those ripe avocados. Maybe I should make tacos… Which, of course, leads to trying to remember how old that bottle of salsa in the back of the refrigerator actually is.
BUT… that isn’t how I want to treat the Gospel. What I would rather do, is listen to it fully, every time… as if I were hearing it anew. Fresh. But, I also want to know it. Have it planted in my heart. And so I have begun reading the Sunday readings earlier in the week, in preparation for church, to kind of get myself ready; to let things start percolating inside me. And something struck me about this familiar parable that I had not considered before. And that is the scholar who asks the question that gets everything started. Trying to put Jesus to the test, he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t just answer. Instead, He asks the scholar, what does the law say? What do you think? And the scholar answers that we are to love first God, and then “your neighbor as yourself” (cf. 10:27). So far so good. But then, even after Jesus has affirmed his answer, the scholar, in an effort to justify himself, pushes the point. He wants to know just exactly who is my neighbor? And this is when Jesus tells the famous parable of the man beset by thieves who leave him to die beside the road and the 3 people who see this poor man. First there was a priest who saw the man and moved to the other side of the road –kept walking. And next a Levite passed by and saw the man and did the same. Both have avoided contact with the victim who lies bleeding (possibly dying) beside the road. Now, for me it is easy to see in these two men, a priest and a Levite (a descendent of Levi who assists in the temple), icons of some kind of hypocrisy. They are supposed to be holy men, Godly men, but instead we see them avoiding contact (even eye contact) with someone in need. And usually, that is all the attention I give to these two sorry figures. But today, this parable opened my eyes in a new way—which is what a parable is supposed to do. First, I began to remember all the times I too avoided eye-contact with someone in need. With the homeless man at the stoplight who was asking for money, or the needy neighbor who calls to ask for help with her sprinkler—sadly, I must admit there have been times I didn’t answer the phone because I knew it was her and I knew what she wanted, and I didn’t want to do it. Of course there were extenuating circumstances: I didn’t go out in the heat. I had just made myself a sandwich, or I just started watching a show or maybe I’d just poured myself a glass of milk and a plate of Oreos.
Anyway, I began wondering about these two, and their extenuating circumstances… What would make them behave this way? And I remembered there are some very strict cleanliness laws in the Torah about contact with the dead, and contact with blood. If the priest were on his way to temple, perhaps to serve at the altar and offer sacrifice, to religious intervene for all the people who had brought offerings, then stopping to help this victim on the road would make him unclean. He wouldn’t be able to fulfill his priestly duties –at least not until he’d gone through a ritual cleansing of his own, which could take seven days (cf. Lev. 19:11). The same would go for the Levite as well. On top of that, there is a priestly warning in Leviticus 21:11 that says a priest should not profane himself by coming into the presence of a dead body, even for the sake of his mother or father.
Read in this light, these might have seemed appropriate “extenuating circumstances” for the audience Jesus was speaking to, especially with this legal scholar standing there. And I have begun wondering whether those possible extenuating circumstances might be part of the lesson Jesus is teaching. A lesson about what we are supposed to do, what the world expects of us, and about moving beyond that. Moving beyond the questions of what do I have to do to get my prize; to inherit the Kingdom? What is the minimum requirement to make sure I go to Heaven? Teaching in parables, I think Jesus is calling us to see the very question of responsibility and reward in a new way.
And so we come to the “Good” Samaritan. He doesn’t concern himself with what he is supposed to do, with what the world expects of him. He simply sees a fellow human in need and stops to offer help, to do what he can—even at his own inconvenience.
That seems enough of a lesson right there. But, because I have my Bible open, I see another lesson that I have missed all along. My blindness keeps becoming more and more clear to me. Perhaps that is why I am writing a series of poems about a blind man… Anyway, back to the Gospel. Here is one more thing to consider the next time you read this story: Just before Jesus stops to teach this lesson, he and the disciples tried to pass through a Samaritan village, but the people there would not receive Him. They were upset that He was heading to Jerusalem (cf. 9:51-56). And so we have that context: the Samaritans who rejected Jesus and His disciples, and this Samaritan who has become an exemplar of hospitality and compassion. What does that mean to us? Why would Jesus tell this story in this context? And why make the “good” man a Samaritan? So many wonderful rich questions. This passage just keeps opening up more deeply, more profoundly, with every reading.
I guess that is the real lesson. Don’t think you know the answers. Don’t think you know someone else’s story, their depths, their injuries and their dreams? Like these parables, each and every one of us is a mystery and a revelation. We are all walking contradictions, one moment selfish, the next a saint. One moment a fool, and the next –well, in my case, still a fool, but now a different kind of fool.
I hope this makes some sense. What I mean to say is this: every time someone asks for your help, they are offering you a blessing. They are sharing with you their God-given grace of “need.” They are giving you the opportunity to be blessed by helping them, to receive the grace of laying down your life for another; setting aside your own wants and needs for the sake of another.
Perhaps the priest and the Levite miss out on that opportunity, because they were too focused on their responsibilities, on their “duties.” Whereas the Samaritan is simply focused on the person right there in front of him, or next door, or knocking at his car window. He is simply being Christ for others by living in the moment, and receiving every opportunity to serve as a chance to find blessing. We cannot do everything, but we can do something, instead of walking away. And that is how the parable opened my eyes today. How about you? What is this famous Parable saying to you?
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