The parable of the Good Samaritan arises out of a discussion between Jesus and a Pharisee. Here is a religious lawyer and he is asking a question on the nature of the law. The stage is set by Luke with these words: “Behold a lawyer stood up to put him to the test.” Well, it's not the first time and probably won’t be the last time that a lawyer phrased a trick question. It was the kind of question in which any kind of an answer would pose still further problems. It was a test question: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.” Now right away we know that this man was a Pharisee, because the Pharisees believed in eternal life and the Sadducees did not. Jesus could tell that this man was an astute student of the law so he asked him: “What is written?” In other words, use your own mind to discern the essence of the law. Jesus, like a good discussion leader, throws the question right back in his lap.
The lawyer had a good answer. He said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This was a direct quote from Deuteronomy 6. It was part of the Shema, a confession regularly made in Jewish worship. Jesus says: “Excellent. You are correct.” If he were a teacher I suppose he would have said: “You get A+.” I have no complaint with this says Jesus. Do this and you shall live. You have not only penetrated to the essence of the law but you have worded it succinctly.
The question had been asked and the answer given. You would think that the man would be pleased and go home. But lawyers are never happy. A lawyer’s responsibility is to define the limits of liability. “But he, desiring to justify himself, asked ‘Who is my neighbor.’” In other words, where does my responsibility stop? Who exactly am I responsible for?”
At this point, instead of further defining the question, Jesus tells a story. A way of indirect teaching.
A certain rich man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho. We can surmise that this man was probably a Jew because this was a road going right through the heart of Judea. He had probably been up to Jerusalem to worship and now he’s going back to the City of Palm Trees. It was a very long serpentine road starting at Jerusalem, the highest point, 2,500 feet above sea level, and going straight down to Jericho, nearly 800 feet below Sea Level. The lowest place on the face of the earth not covered by water--the deepest city in the world.
The Jericho Road was a notoriously thief-infested stretch of rocky mountain road, a long, lonely seventeen miles crowded with caves and danger. Since the road was so often traveled by religious pilgrims and businessmen and because it was so crooked, robbers frequented the road often. In fact, the route was so ripe for pillage that it had been nicknamed “The Bloody Pass”. By the time you rounded a bend the bandits were there and you really had no chance to escape. I suppose if there had been newspapers it would not have been unusual to read about the latest mugging on the Jericho Road.
And so, too, the particular traveler in Jesus story fell victim. He was ambushed, robbed, beaten, stripped, and left to die in a pool of crimson red. Now, the question in the story is who is going to stop and help? Who is it that will not fall prey to the temptation to pass by on the other side?
I
The first passerby, it just so happens, was a priest from the local temple who saw this beaten man. It may seem curious to us that he makes no effort at all to stop and help but this priest was probably thinking that the man was already dead and that time for help had now passed. But probably, also, in the back of his mind was the thought that according to temple law whoever touched a dead man was considered unclean for seven days. That meant that he would lose his turn of duty in the temple. His obligations to the temple obviously came before his obligations to this beaten man, a man whom who didn’t even know.
It was ceremony before charity for this particular priest. So he passed by on the other side.
Not long ago on the Today Show a clergyman interviewed on the subject of AIDS. His position was: These people are not victims; they got themselves into this mess. They have no one to thank but themselves. Why should we help? That might well have been the position of the Priest on the Jericho Road: He took his chances. When you travel by yourself on a dangerous highway you get what you ask for. He got himself into this, let him get himself out.
II
The next passerby happened to be a Levite, a man literally born to the synagogue. He slowed down and curiously approached this beaten victim. Oftentimes these bandits had a habit of using decoys. One of their number would play the role of the beaten victim. When some unsuspecting traveler stooped over, then the others would come running out and pounce upon him. This Levites motto was safety first: In life, you need to be careful what you commit yourself to. After glancing over the body, and cutting his eyes from side to side to see if anyone was watching, he too passed by on the other side of the road.
I am not too sure that our reasons for passing by on the other side of the road have changed too much over the years.
Some of you remember the Seinfeld show. In its final Episode, which aired at the end of the 1998 TV season, the main characters (Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer) receive a one year sentence for failing to help someone who was being robbed.
What happens is this: Their plane encounters problems and they are stuck in Lakeland Massachusetts. Killing time wondering around on the sidewalks in this quaint New England town, they become innocent bystanders and witnesses of a car jacking.
Being New Yorkers and the kind of people they are they make fun of the guy who is being robbed. Kramer, who has a camcorder in his hands, films the incident as a curiosity. They never lift a hand, never shout out; they are 10 yards away, and could care less. They just stand there and casually watch! The robber speeds off with the car and the police arrive late on the scene. With the excitement over, and the poor victim standing dazed in the street, Jerry turns to his friends and suggest they go get something to eat.
As they walk off the officer stops them and says, "Alright, hold it right there."
Jerry: Wha’?
Officer: You’re under arrest.
Jerry: Under arrest, What for?
Officer: Article 223 dash 7 of the Lakeland county penal code.
Elaine: What, we didn’t do anything.
Officer: That’s exactly right. The law requires you to help or assist anyone
in danger as long at its reasonable to do so.
George: I never heard of that.
Officer: It’s new, it is called the Good Samaritan Law, Let’s go.
The series ends with them serving their time. The critics hated it. It was pretty bad but there was a redeeming quality to that last episode. For nine years Seinfeld's characters used, ridiculed, and made fun of everyone they met. The four of them were the Priest and the Levites of our modern world. We climb the ladder of success and FedEx gives you the world on time. This is our attitude. Stopping to help someone crimps our style and requires too much of our time.
Looking back on it I can't help but wonder if the script for that final episode was taken right out of Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan. George says that he never heard of that one. Truth is, the law isn't new. It's as old as the tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. There’s nothing NEW about it. The story of the Good Samaritan underscores our apathy. It reminds us how unwilling we are to stop. Stop what we are doing and help someone who is in need.
But don’t let this lull you into believing that Jesus is talking about being friendly to everyone. The point to the story has a bit more bite to it. Jesus is asking the expert in the Law to treat not just his friends, not just the people in his town, and folks stranded on the road as neighbors, but to treat the very people he despises, or dislikes, or makes fun of, or even hates as neighbors. In a word: Love your enemies. The story of the Good Samaritan is a lesson on how the Law of Moses is to be understood and lived out in the most difficult of relationships.
I am convinced that apathy is just a word until you see it in action. That’s what the Seinfeld show did so well over the course of its nine years. It hid the apathy of the characters behind the mask of humor. In that final episode Jerry Seinfeld unmasked it and the critics couldn’t stand it. The show wasn’t trying to get a laugh it was trying to make a point. It is the point of Jesus’ parable: Anytime we refuse to stop and help and be a friend to someone in need, then we are committing the sin of the Priest and Levite on the Jericho Road.
III
Then a third person happens down the road and this individual, as it turns out is not a Jew but a Samaritan. But this Samaritan stops and tends to the victim’s needs, applies first aid, puts oils as a disinfectant on the wounds, bandages him up, and takes him to a nearby inn. There he leaves him, but not before paying his bill. Having finished his story Jesus looks at the lawyer and asks the question: Now who was the neighbor to the man who fell among robbers. Well, of course, you could not possibly miss the point. The lawyer responds: The one who showed mercy.
Now a very interesting thing has happened. A lawyer has asked a question which in effect says: “What is the outer perimeter of my responsibility? At what point am I no longer liable? Where does it cut off.” In effect he is asking: where can I quit loving? The answer that he probably wanted was: All faithful members of the Jewish faith or all members of the Jerusalem Bar. That’s where you can stop being a neighbor!
So, what about Jesus answer--this Good Samaritan parable. Jesus is in effect saying, “Look, you are asking the wrong question?” The real question is not “Who is my neighbor?” It doesn’t make any difference who your neighbor is out there. The question is who are you? The question is not who is my neighbor, the question is am I a neighbor. A person who has the love of God within him will respond with compassion to human suffering wherever he finds it. Mercy--mercy for another human being is not qualified by race, status, religion or any other barrier that society might erect. This Pharisee was looking for where he could stop loving. It was Jesus who said: “Look, its sharing love that makes a person a neighbor. You define it in terms of the center and not the circumference.
Reader's Digest once told the story of how God's Spirit helped one man fight the impulse to pass by on the other side. On September 26, 1944, Ray Hamley, an RAF flying officer, and his crew, flying an American-built B-25, dropped bombs on the town of Kleve just inside Germany's border with Holland. Ray was 21 years old, and his bombs that day hit the railroad station, a number of Nazi factories, and the town church. He had an inkling that one of his bombs hit the church, but war was war. On the ground that day a young woman in Kleve mourned not only the loss of her church, but the loss of her parents who happened to live in a house next to the church. For the town of Kleve, 647 civilians and 879 military personnel would die before the Second World War was over.
Meanwhile, Ray Hamley went home to England after the war, married his childhood sweetheart, and became the head of a primary school. But then in 1983, someone handed Ray a newspaper clipping that showed how the people of a little town in Germany named Kleve were rebuilding the Church of St. Mary that had been bombed during the war. Something triggered in Ray's memory. He found his old logbook in the attic, and suddenly realized that it had been his bomb that had destroyed the church back in 1944.
An impulse was born in his heart as he thought about that tiny town, and how the loss of the church must have touched those people. But then came the temptation to pass by on the other side. He thought to himself, "Come on, Ray, after all, the Nazis bombed innocent children in London and Warsaw; it was wartime; it was years ago; forget it, Ray, and get on with your life; it's not your concern." But thank God, Ray Hamley did not let those second thoughts win out. He wrote to the Mayor of Kleve, asking for the forgiveness of the townspeople, and requesting that his letter be read by the priest at the dedication of the new church building. In 1984, Ray got a reply from the people of Kleve, requesting that he and his family come and see the new church building. But again, those second thoughts attacked Ray, and he could not even answer the letter.
Once more the parish priest in Kleve wrote to Ray, this time with a letter signed by 500 parishioners offering their forgiveness in the name of Jesus Christ! Ray Hamley went to Kleve. His visit not only healed old wounds in his life, but has brought about an incredible reconciliation between Ray's hometown in England and the people of Kleve in Germany. And it all happened because by the power of God, Ray Hamley was able to conquer his second thoughts, and not pass by on the other side! For Ray Hamley, this was a turning point in his life.
How difficult it is to stop and be sensitive. We want to say: Well, that’s not my neighbor. He’s from another city, or another political philosophy, or another economic bracket, or of another race. But Jesus is saying, it doesn’t make any difference who he is. If we are people within whom the love of God dwells then we will respond with compassion to those whom we pass on the roadside of life. The young Pharisee asked: how can I love my neighbor if I don’t know who he is. Jesus replied: It’s not who he is. It’s who you are. Amen.