Love Thy (Samaritan) Neighbor
As with so many of the Biblical narratives the story of “The
Good Samaritan” has commonly been used simply to coax us into better behavior more
befitting of one seeking a place in God’s kingdom; in this case we are told to
be like the unassuming Samaritan who renders aid to a man down on his luck in
contrast to the two prominent self righteous religious leaders who couldn’t be
bothered. A useful object lesson to be
sure but if we pause to take a closer look at the dialogue between Jesus and
the ‘expert in the law’ which led up to the hypothetical allegory in the first
place, we will uncover a much deeper meaning. A wholly unexpected
message conveying nothing short of a profound Gospel principle then jumps out
at us complete with the power to unify people of every perspective and from
every walk of life.
For you see the question he had put to Jesus was that of
asking whom it was according to the Law that he was required to love as himself. But Jesus’ answer was confounding to the “one
seeking to justify himself” as he was rendered unable to walk away smugly self-identifying
with the one who had helped the poor fool in the ditch. On the contrary Jesus declares him to be that poor fool, the one who must learn to love the most
despicable neighbor conceivable in the mind of a Jewish leader – that of a “low-life”
Samaritan, and not just any Samaritan mind you, but one on whom at that moment his
very life depends.
There’s nothing quite like finding oneself in such desperate
straits as being unable to deny help from those whom we have deemed practically unworthy even of our recognition
as fellow humans – those untouchables. We
would almost rather die first. But sometimes
just such a dreaded turn of events is precisely what is required to bring the
realization crashing through our thick skulls at long last that we are all in
this life together and that we actually need each-other (every-other) to get through it.
God in his infinite wisdom and poignant sense of humor knows exactly
what it takes to penetrate our elitist façade in order to expose the underlying
fundamental desire for loving connection with others, even those so unlike
ourselves.
This unique insight into this famous parable’s deeper
meaning is not of my own contemplation. I
have borrowed it from the teaching of my father and will now defer to a sampling of his more comprehensive
discussion of this topic.
The Good Samaritan
Excerpts from a speech given to the Sunstone Symposium
in the Hilton Hotel
in Salt Lake City, Utah August 16, 1996
The lawyer asks two questions: 1) "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" and 2) "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus answers the first of these questions by asking the lawyer, "What is written in the law?" To that question, the lawyer answers, "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 neighbor as yourself." Although Jesus immediately tells the lawyer that he gave the right answer, the scripture says that the lawyer, "desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'" It was precisely the attitude with which he asked this second question that the lawyer placed himself in a position to be unable to perceive the answer which Jesus gave in the parable of the Good Samaritan. And what was that attitude? It was the attitude of "seeking to justify himself."
Not only did this attitude blind the lawyer to the answer which Jesus gave him in the parable under consideration, but it is an attitude toward the word of God which too often characterizes us in relation to the scriptures. We, too, tend to read our Bibles from the standpoint of seeking to justify ourselves, that is, we seek to find in the Bible confirmation that we are right in contrast to others, who are wrong. An example of this is Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the publican who went up to the Temple to pray. I feel certain that you are well acquainted with that parable which is recorded in Luke 18:9-14. Interestingly enough, Luke prefaces it by saying that the reason Jesus told the parable was to expose "some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others." Without my reading that parable to you, I believe you remember the bottom line in which Jesus turns the tables on the conventional estimate of these two men and lets us see that the "good" Pharisee is actually the "bad guy" and the despised publican is the "good guy." But if we approach that parable with the attitude of seeking to justify ourselves, we will fail to experience the judgment on us that it was designed to convey and instead, will go away feeling smug about ourselves and ironically thanking God that we are not like "that self-righteous Pharisee."
Unfortunately, we not only approach the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican with the attitude of seeking to justify ourselves, but we also, along with the lawyer, approach the parable of the Good Samaritan with that same attitude. That is why he and we are blinded to the answer that Jesus gave in that parable, and it partly explains why Jesus said He taught certain kinds of people in parables, namely, "because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." (Matthew 13:13). I believe that the people Jesus had in mind were precisely the kind of people exemplified by the lawyer to whom he addressed the parable of the good Samaritan.
So now let's take a close look at that parable to see why its meaning is missed if we approach it with a self-righteous attitude and how, by the grace of God, we may otherwise be opened to its meaning. Since I believe that all of you are well acquainted with this parable, I shall not repeat it to you in detail. It speaks to us of four men: 1) a man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, who stripped and beat him, and left him half dead on the side of the road; 2) a priest and, 3) a Levite, both of whom later went down that same road, but who passed the wounded man and left him lying on the side of the road; and last of all, 4) a Samaritan, who instead of passing the victim by, administered healing to his wounds and placed him in the keeping of an inn keeper.
Upon ending this parable, Jesus asked the lawyer, "Which of these three do you think proved to be neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" To this the lawyer correctly replied, "The one who showed mercy on him." Now, if we have paid careful enough attention to the lawyer's question to Jesus as to "who is my neighbor?" We should not have too much trouble applying the lawyer's correct answer to ourselves. But when we hear Jesus' final admonition to the lawyer to "Go and do likewise," we jump the track and fail to connect the answer to the question to which it is the answer. And once again, what was the question? It was, "Who is my neighbor?" And why was the lawyer concerned to know who his neighbor was? Because he wanted to know who it was that he was supposed to love.
I believe that the reason we miss the answer to this question is because we trip over Jesus' admonition to "Go and do likewise." And the reason this trips us up is because we are looking for Jesus to tell us to do something that will be meritorious. And what could be more meritorious than to do what the Samaritan did? So, when we hear Jesus tell us to "do likewise," we skip a cog and kid ourselves into believing that we already are "good Samaritans" who only need an occasional reminder to be even better Samaritans. And so we miss the answer the parable gives us as to who is the neighbor we are to love? Instead of seeing that the neighbor to be loved is the Samaritan, we take it to be the man in the ditch. And if we actually believe that we are practitioners of such love, then we are indeed men and women who chronically seek to justify ourselves, and are blind to who we really are.
By what I have said thus far, am I implying that the parable is not admonishing us to be good Samaritans to persons who are seriously in need of help? By no means! What I am saying is that the first teaching of the parable is that we become aware of ourselves as being "in the ditch" and therefore, are so seriously in need that we must first receive help from whomever God chooses to help us. Only after receiving help can we be ready to give the help that Jesus says we are to give to other "in-the-ditch" people! In other words, before we can be good Samaritans, we must be recipients of help from Samaritans. But that is precisely what most of us would rather die than do. And why is that? Because it is too humiliating to receive help from people we despise, people to whom we feel superior. That is precisely why Jesus deliberately chose as his central character a Samaritan, a member of a race of people who were heartily despised by the Jewish people to whom he addressed his teaching. Had Jesus lived in modern Japan, his central character would have been "The Good Korean." If in America, he would have been "The Good Afro-American," or the "Good Russian Communist." If in Iran, he would have been "The Good American." We could extend this list endlessly. What each of us must do is ask ourselves, who are the people I most despise? Who are the people from whom I would never want to receive help?
Until we get our eyes opened to how seriously in need we are, we will be inclined to be choosy about whom we will look to for help, if we ever look for help at all. But if we are ever in an actual "half dead in the ditch" condition, we won't be able to ask for help from anyone since we will be beyond taking any initiative. We will be at the mercy of whomever God sends to our rescue.
And that is exactly what the Apostle Paul tells us about ourselves in Romans 5:6 where he says that "While we were yet HELPLESS," God came to our rescue "at the right time" in the person of Christ, who "died for the ungodly" (Emphasis mine). The prophet Isaiah foresaw that this Christ "had no form or comeliness that . . . we would desire him." And he was "despised and rejected by men." (Isaiah 53:2-3). If there was ever a man who truly functioned as a "Good Samaritan," it was Jesus of despised Nazareth. On one occasion, even so guileless a man as Nathaniel asked the question, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (Jn. 1:46). when he was told that Jesus was a man from Nazareth, which shows how despised and looked down upon was that backwoods town!
Many times I have had to learn this lesson of willingness to receive help from sources that I had despised. Probably my most memorable occasion was when I was seriously in need of expert counseling in connection with one of my sons who had been expelled from high school for having violated school rules. I didn't know where to turn for help. If I could have afforded to pay for it, I would have chosen to go for counseling to the elite psychiatrists in Beverly Hills or Sherman Oaks near where I then lived in Los Angeles. Instead, I was referred by a preacher who served a church I despised to a counseling center in a town I despised sixty-five miles from home. Like Nathaniel, I wondered if any good thing could come to me from such sources and through such channels. I very reluctantly drove the 130 mile round trip through rush hour freeway traffic because that was all I could afford. And what was even more humiliating, the only reason I could afford it at all was because the director of that counseling center gave me a 65% discount on his standard fees. But to my pleasant surprise, the quality of counseling was so good that I received all of the help I so desperately needed. And I learned to love the preacher and church I had despised as I increasingly acknowledged them to be the "Good Samaritan neighbors" that Jesus said I should love.
No, we will never understand the parable of the Good Samaritan nor be really able to serve as Good Samaritans until we have first allowed that parable to show us our own need to be helped by "Samaritans." Only then, will we be in a position to obey Jesus' admonition for us to "Go and do likewise."
Harry Robert Fox
