The Good Samaritan

 One of the many reasons why this parable has remained so dear to my heart is because of this fascinating impact it’s had on our culture. It’s because of this story that the phrase “good samaritan” is part of our popular lexicon. This phrase is heavily used across local news and social media, and it has a pretty consistent definition: “a stranger who steps in to help when they see someone in public in danger.” But…our definition of what it means to “help” can be a bit variable. I did a search of the internet for “good samaritan” stories from news headlines this week, and here’s just a sampling of what I found:

“Good samaritan pulls driver from a burning car”

“Good samaritan pulls two people from a burning boat”

“Good samaritan performs CPR on a shooting victim”

“Good samaritan spends two days reuniting a woman with her lost purse”

“Good samaritans find a lost wedding ring and return it to its owner, who hadn’t taken it off once in over 50 years”

And the one that really got my attention,

“Good samaritan shoots an armed man attempting to rob McDonalds”

For the record, and our mutual peace of mind, all the people referenced in those headlines survived. But, still, this phrase pulls all of us into this ever unfolding dialogue about what a good samaritan really is, and, in one sense, that means we all have some version of a sermon about the Good Samaritan resting between the synapses of our brains. We’re also very prepared, both socially and legally, to come to the defense of the good samaritan. Many jurisdictions have “good samaritan laws” in place to protect you if you put yourself into a dangerous situation to try to help someone, and you inadvertently hurt the other person. The law protects you from being sued or prosecuted, because we recognize under this both explicit and implicit social contract that you did the right thing, you were trying to help. The same philosophy is extended to the gentleman at that McDonalds who shot the armed robber. As soon as we named him a “good samaritan”, we decided what we thought of his actions. What Jesus may have thought…is another matter

So, let’s look at the parable itself. A “parable” is a story that Jesus made up on the fly. It didn’t happen. But Jesus knew his neighbors well enough that he was pretty gifted at coming up with compelling hypotheticals. The day that he whipped up this one, he was in the presence of a “lawyer”. In Jesus’ time, a “lawyer” isn’t exactly someone who represents you in court, it’s an expert in the Law. Big L. The Law of Moses. The many, many requirements laid out in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This guy knows them. All 613 of them.

If nothing else, I’ll give our lawyer friend this: he’s a smart cookie! And he has a great memory!

Our lawyer friend asks Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Not an uncommon question, and a relevant one for a Jewish man to ask. Jesus answers a question with a question, which wasn’t as annoying to people of his time as we see that now: “Well, Mr. Smarty Pants Lawyer, what does the Law say about that?” Jesus is clarifying the question, a common practice for Rabbis of his time. But he’s also pushing the lawyer–Bro, you already know the answer to this question. Are you really requesting new information, or are you just asking so you can furnish the answer yourself and walk away with a gold star and a pat on the head in front of the Pharisees who were no doubt standing ten feet away watching this whole exchange?

But the lawyer takes Jesus up on his challenge, and pushes back: who is my neighbor?

And here comes this story.

A man, presumably Jewish, had finished up whatever business he had in Jerusalem, and was headed down the road to Jericho. Jericho was downhill, and known to be a wealthier community. Robbers could hide in trees and bushes on the side of the hill and then jump out to attack unsuspecting travelers. This happens to this unnamed Jewish man. They take EVERYTHING from him, not just his cash and his watch, but they even take his clothes, just in case they can be pawned. Jesus describes him as “half dead”, but the truth is that such a man may as well have died, because none of the predominantly Jewish travelers on this road are going to give up their ritual purity and risk being attacked by robbers themselves to help a bleeding naked guy. But Jesus also plays into our optimism–hey, maybe we’re wrong, maybe we’ll be surprised.

Jesus presents the three people who see this man in descending order of how much the lawyer would have respected them. First, a Temple Priest comes by. Well connected, and committed in lifelong service to God and community, surely he’ll immediately stop, right? Wrong. He changes his course and walks by on the other side of this man so that the sun will hit him in such a way that not even his shadow will touch the victim. That’s cold. But, also, in keeping with the letter of the Law. But, you know what, he’s a priest. Maybe he was so busy, and he was in a hurry to get someplace very important. He was leaving his place of work, so that’s not likely, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt because we’ve been taught to like him! The next person who sees this man is a Levite. Lower on the totem pole than the priest, a Levite is also committed to Temple service. Hey, maybe he’ll stop! Right? Noooooo…he does exactly what the priest did, and he changes his path to completely avoid the robbed man. 

Then comes along the last person on the road, and the last one the lawyer wants to hear about. A samaritan. Oh man, not one of those guys.

Once upon a time, Israel was one, unified country. But to Jesus and the lawyer, those days were ancient history. Legend held that under the unwise reign of King Rehoboam around the year 920 BCE, Israel split into two kingdoms–the Northern Kingdom, which kept the name “Israel”, and the Southern Kingdom, called “Judah.”

Jesus and the lawyer lived in Judah. And the hundreds of years that had passed since the split allowed plenty of time for some serious bad blood between the two kingdoms. The Southern Kingdom, according to Judahites, was the home of respectable, ritually pure, Law abiding Jews. Their capital was Jerusalem. The capital of the Northern Kingdom was Samaria. And Samaritans, according to Judahites, were those nasty people in the north. Centuries of rumors had circulated about dirty politics, idol worship, and uncouth behavior up north. Judahites, by the time of Jesus, had long forgotten they ever shared anything in common with Samaritans. 

So if the priest and the Levite saw a man bleeding to death and robbed of all possessions on the side of the road, and they passed him…what did that nasty Samaritan guy do? He…helped. Huh. He stopped. He had to guess the robbed man was a Judahite, but still, he gave up his own limited resources to disinfect and bandage the man’s injuries, and then he acted as a servant to him, and lifted his body onto his donkey, and then got him to a local inn. Then he prepaid a bunch of money to the innkeeper to pay for room, board, and medical care for the injured man, and promised to return to pay whatever was left on the tab.

Yeah, the lawyer really didn’t want to like this guy. It was awfully inconvenient for him to see him as an example of noble, righteous behavior. Jesus, why do you gotta go ruining all of our stereotypes?

Two thousand years later, the world isn’t all that different. The Israel we know now is all one country, but embroiled in tension with their Palestinian neighbors. And here, closer to home, we know how the lawyer felt any time we use the phrase “the wrong side of the tracks”. We’ve all been guilty of harboring huge resentments toward folks who live on the other side of a totally arbitrary line. 

As most of y’all know, Sean and I saw this growing up in Chicago, with its infamous North Side-South Side split. Sean and I grew up on the North Side. The North Side, according to North Siders, is the classy, posh, refined, wealthy side of Chicago. The South Side, according to North Siders, is the poor, filthy, crime-ridden side of Chicago, inhabited by baseball fans who root for the White Sox instead of the Cubs.

Notice how that story gets skewed depending on who writes the book? Many North Siders will neglect to mention the number of museums and historical landmarks down south of the Chicago River. They’ll gloss over the art and music scene to be found there. They’ll also let you assume that that rift is entirely about geography, as if the desperate lack of boats to cross the river caused the divide, when actually, it has a whole lot more to do with class and race. The wealthiest neighborhoods in the whole Chicago area are on the North Side, where generational wealth, amplified by white flight, gave a plethora of opportunities to build up those areas. Over in the South Side, redlining and prejudice toward racial and ethnic minorities left many of those communities perpetually strapped.

The next time we’re inclined to look down our noses and perpetuate another negative stereotype about the folks we see as “South Siders”, or “Samaritans”, we need to ask ourselves, why am I doing this? Why do I think this? Are these thoughts in keeping with the love ethic of Jesus? Because if they aren’t, it’s time to change the stories we tell ourselves, and one another.

To close this sermon, I found a tweet a number of years ago where someone reframed the story of the Good Samaritan for a modern American audience, and the wisdom still holds up:

A man of color was jumped by white supremacists and left for dead. A mega church pastor saw him, but didn’t want to get involved and look “political”, so he kept walking. Then a law and order politician saw him. He extended his thoughts and prayers, and also kept walking. Finally, an undocumented immigrant saw him. He stopped and called 911. Who was the man’s neighbor? The one who showed mercy.

Go, and do likewise.

Amen.