The Good Samaritan – Luke 10:30-37[context – Luke 10:25-29]

The Facts

A man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho.  He was robbed, wounded and left half dead by thieves.  Afterward, a priest saw the man, but went by the man, passing on the other side of the road.  After that, a Levite did the same thing(the Levite even looked at the man).  Then a Samaritan came to the same place, saw the man and had compassion on him.  The Samaritan went to the man, bandaged his wounds, put oil and wine on him, put the man on his own animal, took him to an inn and took care of him.  The next day, the Samaritan had to leave, so he gave the innkeeper some money and told him to take care of the man, also stating that if anything was owed, he would pay it when he returned.

Context

Before answering what the parable means, we need to look at the context, since this parable is effectively Jesus’ response to a question.  A lawyer(someone who when the Law of Moses) questioned Jesus, asking Him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life.  This is a great question, since we all need to know the answer to this question.  Jesus asks the lawyer what the Law of Moses says, emphasizing how the lawyer understands the Law of Moses.  The lawyer responded that a person should love God with all their heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus commended the lawyer, stating that he was correct.  Jesus continued to say that he would live(i.e. the eternal life question the lawyer had initially asked) if he did what he stated.  The lawyer then asked Jesus who his neighbor was.  This question by the lawyer regarding who his neighbor was, or to put it another way, “who do I have to love as myself?” was the impetus for Jesus telling this parable.

The lawyer knew Who God was, which was the first part of his two-part response.  But he needed to know who his neighbor was for the second part of his response.  It is interesting to note that the lawyer wanted to justify himself(Luke 10:29), when he asked who his neighbor was.  This is likely because the lawyer wants to know just how many different people does he need to love.  How far out does this go?  Is it his household?  Extended family?  Next door neighbors?  People in the neighborhood?  Friends?  Co-workers?  Nice people?  People he likes?  Enemies(in Luke 6:27, Jesus told those present to love their enemies, but this lawyer may not have been there at that time)?

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus’ answer to the question, “who is my neighbor?”  This is critically important to understanding the point Jesus is trying to make.  It can be really easy to get lost in the important to do good to others in need.  That may be true, but that is NOT the point Jesus is trying to make.  Jesus is specifically trying to get this man(and others listening) to understand “who” his neighbor is.  So let’s look at what this really means.

What Does It Mean?

The man who was victimized was likely a worshipper of God.  Jesus specifically states that he was going from Jerusalem to Jericho.  He was likely in Jerusalem to worship God at the Temple.  Whether he was a believer or not is likely not too important, but that would seem to be the case.  The priest and the Levite walk around the poor, beaten man.  Jesus no doubt uses the priest and the Levite, as they are people who should understand the Law of Moses better than anyone, even the lawyer Jesus was telling the parable to.  Priests and Levites worked at the Temple, doing sacrifices and helping others to understand the Law of Moses.  These were people that God specifically set aside for Himself(Lev. 3:11-13).  Any of the other Israelites who tried to do the work of a priest or Levite at the Temple was to be killed(Num. 18:1-7).  So these were special people among God’s chosen people(Israel).

By basically crossing to the other side of the street, the priest and Levite were trying to avoid what otherwise would have been a necessary response to the man who had been beaten.  This was not a matter of not seeing him; both saw him.  But upon seeing him, both took steps, literally and figuratively, to put themselves in a position further away from the man in need.  Here we have Jewish religious leaders who are NOT doing what the Law of Moses required . . . helping someone in need.  And that is the same thing the lawyer was trying to do when he asked Jesus the follow-up question, “who is my neighbor?”  The lawyer was trying to avoid helping someone, if at all possible.  He might as well have said, “Do I have to help _____?”  Instead of having a heart that wanted to help(i.e. to love his neighbor), his heart was trying to avoid helping as many people as possible . . . yet still be following the Law of Moses and securing eternal life for himself.  Remember, that was his first question.  He wanted to know what to do to achieve eternal life.
By contrast, when the Samaritan saw the injured man, he helped . . . a lot(went to the man, bandaged his wounds, put oil and wine on him, put the man on his own animal, took him to an inn, took care of him, told the innkeeper to take care of him, paying the innkeeper money and telling him he would pay for any additional expenses).  In the first century AD, this part of the parable must have been exceedingly painful for a Jewish audience to hear.  First of all, their religious leaders, a priest and Levite, did not help.  But to make matters worse, one of those cursed Samaritans did the right thing!  Jews and Samaritans hated each other.  They rarely spoke, and they did it was not good.  And yet, the hero of the parable was a Samaritan.  That is why, when Jesus asked who was a neighbor to the man, the lawyer said the one who showed him mercy.  He couldn’t bring himself to refer to the man as the Samaritan, but rather the one who showed him mercy.  That is sad for so many reasons.

Takeaways

Here are some basic things that we can learn from this parable.

First of all, remember what the purpose of the parable was . . . to answer the question “who is my neighbor?"  The answer to the question is . . . whoever needs help.  We do not know anything about the victim other than that he was headed from Jerusalem to Jericho.  As such, he could have been a priest or a Levite, but in all likelihood, he was someone leaving Jerusalem after worshipping God in some manner.  But even if he was just travelling on business, he was still someone in desperate need of help.  That is who your neighbor is . . . someone who needs help.

Religious leaders(in this case a priest and Levite) are people who we should look to for direction, or as examples.  But sometimes, they fail.  They should know better, and maybe they do know better, but that does not mean they are infallible.  We should follow them when they do what God wants them to do; we should not follow them when they fail to do what God wants them to do.

When helping someone, like the Samaritan did, do what you can.  The Samaritan left the very next day.  As far as we can tell, the wounded man needed more attention.  The Samaritan did what he could before he had to leave, but he did leave.  He also left money to help take care of the wounded man.  Sometimes, what we can do is limited.  That is fine.  The Samaritan was limited in what he could do to help, but he did not use that as an excuse to do nothing.  He did what he could.  We need to do what we can.

The lawyer was trying to limit who he had to love.  We should never do this.  Instead of trying to remove people from the list of people we need to love, we should try to add as many as we can.  Will there be some people we just cannot help?  Yes.  But that does not mean we cannot help anyone, just because there was one person we could not help.  We need to do what we can for whoever we can.

Jesus never said who the robbed man was.  Why?  Because it did not matter.  He could have been a Jew, a Samaritan or a Gentile.  Jesus did not mention it because who he was(i.e. his ethnicity) was irrelevant.  He needed help . . . that was what was relevant.  We need to look at the need instead of the person.  Don’t make up excuses why that person is not deserving of help, but rather that there is a need for help.

The Wrap

I think this parable is somewhat misunderstood, in that people say that the point of the parable is to help people.  And helping people is definitely part of the parable, the real point is “who” not “what.”  Jesus wanted the lawyer to understand that anyone and everyone is his neighbor.  The lawyer was trying to limit his circle of people to help.  Jesus wanted him to see that anyone and everyone should have been in his circle of people to help.

When Jesus told the lawyer to go and do likewise, Jesus meant “go,”   as in live your life, and “do likewise,” as in do what the Samaritan did . . . help someone who is in need.  So let’s do that.  Let’s live our lives, and if we see someone in need, let’s help them.

Caveat:  I would like to make one important point.  The victim in the parable was clearly in need of help.  There are all kinds of people who claim to be in need of help, but we have no way of knowing whether or not they have any actual need.  I am not suggesting offering help to everyone who says they need help.  I am also not suggesting we should put ourselves in harm’s way.  The Samaritan did not run off the bandits.  There was no apparent danger to anyone; that time had passed.  We need to be careful not to become victims in our attempt to help those who say they are in need of help.  Jesus said we need to be wise as foxes and harmless as doves(Matt. 10:16).