Hello everyone.
I haven't written anything is a while, but I hope to be back on track to do more writing moving forward. Anyway, as we continue our journey through Luke, we arrive at one of the more fanous of Jesus' parables: The Good Samaritan. That is what we are going to look at today.
This story begins with an expert in the law who wants to put Jesus to the test. This is not the only time Jesus is asked this question. But this time the questioner has an ulterior motive. Jesus gives the question back to the expert in the law, asking him how he reads the law. The man answers well, and Jesus acknowledges that.
Darrell Bock says that by responding this way, Jesus shows himself to be one who wishes to reflect upon what God requires, and not some radical who is trying to tear down the law. He sends the lawyer back to his own source material, the law, for the answer.. (Bock, 1024.) The man responds in verse “Love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength and with all of your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself," combining the Shema of Deut. 6:5 with the command to love your neighbor in Lev. 19:18.
The man answers the same way Jesus does when asked the most important commandment in Matthew 22:36. “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”
In the Greek the answer involves loving God with ὅλης (holēs), which means the whole, or all, in four areas. Καρδίας (kardias), which means heart. Ψυχῇ (psychē), which means sould. Ἰσχύϊ (ischui), which means strength, and διανοίᾳ (dianoia), which means mind. This pretty much covers every area. We are to love God with our whole self. Then love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
The man knew the correct answer, but it appears that he didn’t really understand the correct answer. After acknowledging that the man’s answer was correct, Jesus tells him that if he will do that, he will live. If he loves God and his neighbor, he will gain eternal life. Kenneth Bailey points out that Jesus does not just give the man the answer. He doesn’t tell him what to do. He gets the lawyer to tell himself the answer. Bailey goes on to say “The answer is given in a command for an open-ended life-style that requires unlimited and unqualified love for God and people.” (Bailey, 38)
The man had answered well, but for some reason, in verse 29, he still felt the need to justify himself, and asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Why did he feel this need to justify himself? He had answered well. Was this an attempt to trap Jesus in words? If it was, it wasn’t a very good one, and it ultimately sprung on him rather than Jesus. I tend to think it was not a trap, but rather an attempt to clarify who he was required to extend his love to, so that he could justify his standing - that he was loving his neighbor enough.
Undoubtedly when those like this Israelite lawyer thought about the concept of ‘neighbor’ it included their loved ones, their friends and family. Perhaps even all of Israel's children, but I am certain that his definition of ‘neighbor’ did not extend to the Samaritans. Leviticus 19:18 does imply that ‘neighbor’ for the Israelites was their fellow Jews, but Jesus' definition of ‘neighbor’ extended to everyone. This lawyer got more than he had bargained for.
To answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus tells the story that we know as the Good Samaritan. A man is traveling down the dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The man is not described, but the audience would likely assume the man to be Jewish. The road itself was well-known for being treacherous, because there were many good places for robbers to hide. The man was robbed, beaten, stripped and left for dead.
The telltale signs of the man’s ethnicity were no longer readily visible. The clothes that might signify him as a Jew, or a non-Jew had been taken. Since he was unconscious, his Jewish (or non-Jewish) accent could not be heard. We know that in Jesus's story, that neither the priest nor the Levite stopped to help this man. Would the priest or the Levite have stopped for a known Jew, maybe. But since the ethnicity was not clear, they passed on by. To the Samaritan, the man's ethnicity did not matter. This was a person in need.
Why did the priest and the Levite not stop to help the man? The text does not say. Many ideas have been offered. A dead body would make them unclean. They may have feared being robbed and left for dead themselves. The Samaritan shows up and does for the man everything that the priest and Levite did not do. He bandaged the wound and took the man to an inn, paying for his care. The Samaritan is the hero of the story and the one we are told to imitate. The Samritan acts graciously toward the man, knowing that because he was a Samaritan, it is possible that his kindness will go unrewarded and unappreciated.
Jesus tells a story to a Jewish audience, in which the hero is a Samaritan. It is an interesting choice for Jesus, since he knew that his audience would be racially motivated to hate the Samaritan. At the end of the story the expert in the law could not even bring himself to say ‘the Samaritan,’ when asked who had been a neighbor to the man who had been robbed. Instead, he said, “the one who had mercy on him." It must have been quite shocking for the audience to be told to go and imitate a Samaritan.
Jesus turns the lawyer's question about neighbors around on him. Don’t worry about who counts as a neighbor. You go and be a good neighbor to everyone.
Tom
Darrel Bock, Luke, Volume 2 - 9:51-24:53, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 1996.
Kenneth Bailey, Jesus Through Missle Eastern Eyes, Downers Grove, Illinois, IVP Academic, 2008.
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