The parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) is perhaps the most well-known of Jesus’ parables, even though it only appears in Luke. Typically, the way this parable has been understood is as a call to extravagant mercy. This has led to really wonderful Christian initiatives. Organisations such as Samaritan’s Purse and Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) are all named after this parable. The parable has even made its way into the English dictionary – so that to be a ‘good Samaritan’ is readily understood to be loving your fellow mankind.
But is there a way to understand the parable, apart from its ethical challenge to extravagant mercy? It seems to me that Jesus’ telling of the parable is predominantly meant to lead listeners to consider their utter inability to inherit eternal life rather than to encourage them to live as good Samaritans. In other words, the parable is first and foremost about salvation and not ethics.
This Sunday, we will explore the conversation prior to this account (Luke 10:25-28) in detail. For now, it is enough for us to know that the question that started this whole exchange is ‘What shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ This question frames the entire conversation. And the answer: love God fully and love one’s neighbour as one’s self – that is what must be done to inherit eternal life by human effort.
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus,
“And who is my neighbor?”
Luke tells us that the unsatisfied lawyer continues the conversation because he wants to ‘justify himself’. Whether it is to justify himself before God or before men, we can’t be sure.[1] In any case, he realises that this project of self-justification is unachievable. And so he tries to specify the objects of his love in order to make it more achievable. He wants the requirements to be specific and achievable. In corporate language, he wants to have SMART goals!
In asking this question, the hope is that the neighbour would only include Law-observant Jewish people, not filthy non-Jews or Jewish enemies, for that matter. How would Jesus respond to the Lawyer’s intent to love of neighbour feasible? Well, Jesus makes it impossibly harder.
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.
32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
If we’ve been in church long enough, we know how the story goes. Two Jews come along, one after another, and they both don’t help. But notice a few details:
First, notice their identity. Jesus identifies them as Jewish leaders, a priest and a Levite, who serve in the temple in Jerusalem. If anyone would help a religious pilgrim,[2] you would think that the religious leaders would be the most likely. Second, notice where they came from: Jerusalem. They were probably coming from serving in the temple. But instead, they ‘passed by on the other side’.
Third, notice the absence of motivation. Nothing is said of the inner motivations of these two – Jesus points to the stark reality that they do nothing for this wounded man.
33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.
Jesus, now introduces a third character, ‘a Samaritan’. This is striking to the lawyer and maybe even to the disciples. The Jews hated the Samaritans and vice versa. The Samaritans had Jewish origins but overtime they intermarried with foreigners. They also developed impure religious practices. Thus, the Jews saw them as ethnically impure and religiously corrupted. To Jews, Samaritans were not simply outcasts, they were enemies. In other words, in Jewish conversations about eternal life, a Samaritan would never appear.
But Jesus’ introduction of the character intensifies the tension. Unlike the religious leaders who were coming from religious activities, this Samaritan was just journeying along. Unlike the religious leaders, he is not portrayed as a holy man at all but rather most likely as a traveling merchant. Unlike the religious leaders, whose inner motivations are not mentioned, Jesus notes his inner motives. He ‘had compassion’ and puts it into practice.
34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying,
‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’
The Samaritan shows extravagant mercy, at great cost to him. Inns were often unsafe places in the ancient world—and innkeepers were often crooks – what the Samaritan did could be dangerous for him. But not only did he risk physical harm, in v35, he is willing to incur unlimited financial cost (‘whatever more you spend’).
And now, we get to the point of it all.
36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”
37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”
And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
You see, the telling of the parable was a response to the Lawyer’s question: who is my neighbour – it is a question meant to make loving one’s neighbour specific and hence achievable. But in response, Jesus tells a parable, that does at least three things to the Lawyer.
First, it goes against the Lawyer’s self-righteous pride – the one who observes the law isn’t a Jew but a Jewish enemy. He breaks down the boundaries of which ethnicities can enter the covenant and keep the covenant.
Second, it goes against the Lawyer’s intentions of limiting love – it shows that love knows no bounds and goes all the way, even at great cost.
Third, it thus goes against the Lawyer’s hope of self-justification – Jesus describes what kind of person inherits eternal life – an ideal person.
The Lawyer’s question was who is my neighbour but Jesus flips it around to ask – who acted like a neighbour. The shift is from minimal love to maximal love; from doing to being; from limiting who is lovable to becoming one has unlimited love. In other words, he is telling the lawyer, “for the sake of argument, suppose you are able to love God fully (v27a), still, there is no way you will be the kind of neighbour that the law requires.” Jesus intents for the Lawyer and his disciples to realise that full obedience to the Law is impossible. It is through grace alone that we inherit eternal life.
This is not to say that we cannot read the parable in an ethically challenging way. But rather we can only aspire to this idealized picture of the good Samaritan if we’ve first grasped that we ourselves have inherited eternal life only through God’s extravagant mercy.
[1] In Luke, when the word ‘justified’ is applied to religious leaders, it means being seen as worthy by others or by God (see Luke 16:15, 18:14).
[2] The man was coming from Jerusalem.
