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The Good Samaritan: Who Is My Neighbour? · Behind the Bible Verse: The Stories and History Behind Scripture

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  This is a story about a man left half dead on a road, and about the stranger who
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  stopped when the respectable people had already gone by.
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  Behind the Bible Verse. This is made with the assistance of AI.
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  Our reading is from the Gospel of Luke, chapter ten, verses twenty-five to
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  thirty-seven, in the World English Bible, British Edition.
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  A lawyer is questioning Jesus, and Jesus answers him with a story.
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  Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I
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  do to inherit eternal life?”
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  He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
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  He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
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  soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as
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  yourself.”
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  He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
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  But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?”
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  Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he
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  fell amongst robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving
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  him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way.
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  When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when
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  he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
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  But a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came where he was.
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  When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his
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  wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, brought him to an
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  inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two
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  denarii, gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him.
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  Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’
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  Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbour to him who fell
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  amongst the robbers?”
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  He said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
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  Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
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  So that's the conversation. A question, a story, and then the question turned
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  around. Most people know the middle, the man on the road.
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  It's worth hearing how the conversation starts, and who is supposed to be
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  uncomfortable at the end.
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  Luke says a lawyer stood up and tested him. In the gospels a lawyer is an expert
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  in the Jewish law, not a courtroom advocate in our sense.
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  He asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus doesn't answer with a speech.
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  He asks what is written, and how the man reads it.
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  The lawyer answers with two commands joined together.
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  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your
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  neighbour as yourself. The first belongs to Deuteronomy, the Shema, the great
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  confession of Israel. Just before it, this translation says, "Hear, Israel: The LORD
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  is our God. The LORD is one." The lawyer is reaching for the centre of his
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  scriptures, not for an obscure rule. In the love command itself, Deuteronomy says
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  "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."
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  Luke's wording adds "mind," and says "strength." The second command is from
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  Leviticus: you shall love your neighbour as yourself.
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  In that verse it follows a line about not taking vengeance, and not bearing a grudge
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  against the children of your people. The neighbour, there, is one of your own.
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  The lawyer has put the two commands side by side, and Jesus says he has answered
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  correctly. Do this, and you will live.
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  That "your own people" is the fence his next question pushes on.
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  Who counts as inside it? How far does the obligation reach before it stops?
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  He is about to be told a story in which the person who helps is the one the fence
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  was built to keep on the other side.
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  It could have ended with "Do this, and you will live."
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  It doesn't, because the lawyer wants to justify himself.
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  Luke is plain about the motive. He asks, "Who is my neighbour?"
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  He is looking for the edge of the duty.
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  Jesus answers with a road. A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
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  That "down" is doing real work. Jerusalem sits in the hills.
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  Jericho is in the Jordan valley, to the east. The ancient road between them runs
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  about twenty-five kilometres, through dry, exposed country, and it had a reputation
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  for danger. Robbers find the man, strip him, beat him, and leave him half dead.
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  A priest comes down that way, sees him, and passes by on the other side.
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  Then a Levite, the same. Priests and Levites were the families who served the
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  temple in Jerusalem. One small word is easy to skip.
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  The priest comes "by chance." The meeting isn't a test he was warned about.
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  He is simply on that road, he sees the man, and he steps aside.
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  Some readers picture him and the Levite on their way home from the temple, and
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  picture Jericho as a town where many priestly families lived.
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  The text doesn't say that. It also doesn't say they were late, or still afraid of
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  robbers in the rocks. The text never says why they don't stop.
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  Readers have also suggested a worry that touching a corpse would leave them
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  ritually unclean for their service. The man is half dead, not clearly dead, and
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  none of those reasons is written down. The story only shows you what they did.
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  They saw him, and they crossed the road.
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  Then a Samaritan. To feel that word, you need the quarrel behind it.
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  Jews and Samaritans shared an older Israelite heritage, and they were divided
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  over the holy place: Jerusalem for most Jews, Mount Gerizim for Samaritans.
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  In the late second century BCE a Hasmonean ruler, John Hyrcanus, destroyed the
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  sanctuary on Gerizim. By the first century the two communities were often sharply at
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  odds, and they also lived near each other. The gospels assume a listener will feel
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  the strain. This road, though, is not the road north through Samaria.
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  It is the Judean descent toward Jericho. The Samaritan is on a road that is not
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  "his," and he stops.
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  The story is in no hurry about what stopping looks like.
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  He is moved with compassion. He goes to the man, binds the wounds, pours on oil
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  and wine, sets him on his own animal, and takes him to an inn.
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  Oil and wine were ordinary things a traveller might have with him.
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  Readers have long heard them as a way to clean and soothe a wound.
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  Whether that is precise medicine or simply what he had, the point of the sentence is
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  the same. He uses his own supplies, and his own animal, which means he walks.
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  The next day he pays the innkeeper two denarii, and says he will repay whatever
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  more is spent when he returns. In Matthew, in this same translation, a denarius is
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  the wage agreed for a day of farm labour. The note there calls it a common day's
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  wage. Two denarii is two days of that, left in advance, with an open promise for
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  the rest. He doesn't drop a coin and disappear. He puts his name, in effect, on
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  the bill.
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  Then Jesus asks the lawyer which of the three seemed to be a neighbour to the man
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  who fell among the robbers. Listen to the shape of that question.
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  The lawyer had asked who his neighbour was, meaning whom he was required to love.
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  Jesus asks who acted as a neighbour. The duty has been turned inside out.
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  It is no longer a map of who qualifies. It is a description of what love does.
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  And listen to the answer. "He who showed mercy on him."
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  The lawyer doesn't say "the Samaritan." Maybe he can't quite get the word out.
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  Maybe Luke simply lets the shortest true answer stand.
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  Either way, the text records what he said, and what he didn't.
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  Jesus says, "Go and do likewise."
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  The help isn't finished inside the story. The Samaritan pays for two days of a
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  labourer's wage and says he will come back and settle whatever else is spent.
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  We never see that return. The bill stays open. "Go and do likewise" works the same
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  way. It doesn't show the lawyer doing it. It leaves the costly part still ahead of
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  him.
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  There's also a quiet reversal in who has the animal, the money, and the freedom to
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  keep walking. The man in the ditch has none of those left.
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  The priest and the Levite have them and keep them.
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  The Samaritan spends all three. He gives up the animal, which means he walks.
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  He gives the money, so the care continues after he leaves.
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  And he spends his safety on a road where robbers have just been at work.
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  Compassion, in this story, doesn't stay a feeling.
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  It is goods, time, and a promise.
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  This parable is told in Luke, and readers generally don't find it in the other three
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  gospels. It sits in a chapter about being sent out, and about who receives you.
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  I won't build a whole sermon on the surrounding verses.
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  The story is complete in itself, and it has been hard for every generation that
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  has a group it would rather walk past.
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  It has also been read in ways that shrink it, and those are worth naming so you can
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  watch for them. Some Christian preaching has treated the Samaritan as a symbol and
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  rushed past the fact that he is a Samaritan, a real neighbour with a real
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  dispute behind him. Some listeners, in every century, have been quick to cast
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  themselves as the helper and someone else as the priest.
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  The text doesn't assign you a part. It asks which of the three seemed to be a
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  neighbour, and then it says go and do likewise.
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  There's a small mercy in the story for the man in the ditch, and it isn't only the
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  bandages. Nobody asks him who he is. The priest doesn't, the Levite doesn't, and
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  the Samaritan doesn't either. He might be anyone. That is part of why the lawyer's
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  opening question can't survive the story. "Who is my neighbour?"
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  wants a list. The man on the road doesn't come with one.
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  People of faith have heard in this a picture of the love God asks.
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  People with no faith at all have heard a plain moral: the person who helps is the
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  person who stops. Both of those can live in the same short story.
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  Jesus, in Luke, doesn't add a speech after "Go and do likewise."
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  He leaves the lawyer, and us, with a road and a choice.
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  So here's a question to sit with, and there's no right answer to it.
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  Who, in the world you actually live in, would be the hardest person for you to
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  stop for?
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  Thanks for listening to Behind the Bible Verse. Scripture readings are from the
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  World English Bible, British Edition, which is in the public domain.
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  Every episode is checked against the text and the historical record.