A priest, a minister and a rabbi are playing golf. They’re discussing how to distribute the donations they’ve received for the week. The priest suggests: “Let’s draw a big circle on the green, we throw all the money up in the air, whatever lands inside the circle, we give to God.” The minister says, “No. We draw a big circle on the green, we throw the money up in the air, whatever lands outside the circle, we give to God.” The rabbi says, “No, no, no. We throw all the money in the air, whatever God wants, he keeps.”
I share that story with you as an opener because Jesus’ story from the Gospel of Luke this morning also has three main characters in it. But Jesus’ story isn’t funny at all, so I thought I’d give you a laugh before we get down to business…
Listen for God’s word to you from Luke 10:25-37…
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
I would like to talk with you today about the Scene, the Characters, and the Application of this story.
The Scene
First, the Scene. Jesus was asked a question by a lawyer while he was on his way to Jerusalem. Right off the bat, we need to understand this passage in its cultural and historical context if it is going to make any sense to us.
The lawyer who asked this question was not a lawyer in our modern sense of the word. This man was a lawyer in that he was a student of the law in Hebrew Scripture. We also know, because Luke tells us, that this lawyer asked this question, not so much because he wanted to know the answer. No, he asked this question to test Jesus, to put Jesus on the spot, possibly to get Jesus in trouble with other Jewish religious leaders.
The lawyer’s question sounds like a simple one, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The question was a standard rabbinic one, to which standard answers were available. There was one other time, at least, when Jesus was asked this same question. A rich, young ruler asked Jesus this question, and Jesus pointed him to the ten commandments for an answer.
But on this occasion, Jesus does something even wiser, he asks the lawyer how he reads the commandments. (We all seem to learn best from our own mouths.)
Strict orthodox Jews, in Jesus’ time and even to this day, wear around their wrists and around their heads little leather boxes called phylacteries which contain certain passages of Scripture. The lawyer answers Jesus by quoting one of the Scriptures he would have had in his phylactery, Deuteronomy 6:5 which says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.” Then the lawyer adds to that Leviticus 19:18 which says: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Of course, these are the two commandments that Jesus said were the greatest.
So, Jesus tells the lawyer that he has answered rightly. If he does these two things, if he loves God and his neighbor, then he will live.
And that is true. If all of us simply loved God and loved our neighbor, then we would all find eternal life. Of course, the problem is that we don’t do that. Or at least we don’t do it completely. As Paul says in Romans 3:20, “For ‘no human being will be justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
The lawyer reveals our human sin problem with his very next statement. Luke says, “but wanting to justify himself,” the lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” There’s our problem. We all want to justify ourselves rather than receiving the justification, the grace, that can only come from God and enable us to obey the commandments in the first place.
Furthermore, the lawyer’s second question was one often discussed by the Rabbis. At their worst and narrowest, some Rabbis, like this lawyer, wanted to confine the word “neighbor” to their fellow Jews.
So, the lawyer’s question leads Jesus to tell a story. And the scene of the story itself is set on the very road Jesus is walking to Jerusalem.
The road from Jericho to Jerusalem, on which Jesus would walk on the last leg of his journey to the holy city, was notoriously dangerous. In less than 20 miles, the Jericho road ascends from almost 1300 feet below sea-level to 2300 feet above sea level. In Jesus’ time it was a narrow road, with rocks on either side, ascending and descending, and the road had many sudden turns. The geography made this road an ideal place for thieves to lie in wait for unsuspecting persons on their way to or from Jerusalem. This road remained a dangerous route of travel all the way down into modern times.
It is interesting to note, that few Israelis today would choose to travel from Galilee to Jerusalem by the direct route, because it would take them through the West Bank, where they might risk violence against their persons at the hands of certain Palestinians. And, I would imagine, the same story could be told about certain Palestinians who would risk their lives if they were to walk through certain Israeli neighborhoods.
It just goes to show that some things never change, unless we choose to change them.
The Characters
Next, let’s look next at the characters in Jesus’ story…
First, there was the Traveler. Perhaps this man was a bit reckless and foolhardy. Most people did not even attempt to travel the road from Jericho to Jerusalem alone, especially if they were carrying anything valuable. Most would prefer to travel in convoys or caravans on this stretch of road. Truly, in this place at least, there was safety in numbers.
But I think it would be wrong to blame this man for what happened to him. I think it is always wrong to blame the victim rather than the perpetrator of a crime. It is wrong to blame women for being raped. It is wrong to blame people of color, or Jews, people from the LGBT community, or anyone for that matter, for hate crimes committed against them. This man was leftstripped, beaten, and half dead. That was not his fault. It was the fault of the robbers.
Jesus does not tell us whether the traveler was a Jew, or a Samaritan, or a Roman. The traveler is Everyman. Any one of us, at any point on the road of life, can have something bad happen to us. Sometimes it is our fault. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes bad things just happen, mainly because we live in a world where God has given to his creatures free will.
The question is, when something bad happens to us, who will be there to help us out of the ditch? And when something bad happens to someone else, will we be the ones to help them out of the ditch?
So, the first character in Jesus’ story is the traveler. And the second character in Jesus’ story is the Priest.
The very first word in this part of the story is an interesting one. The NRSV translates it as, “Now by chance…” But literally the word that is used here, and only here in Luke 10:31, means “with the Lord”. So, the text should really read: “As the Lord would have it…” And notice what this emphasizes. The Lord doesn’t send the robber to beat up the man. The Lord sends people to help. Of course, we still have free choice about whether we will help or not.
The priest apparently was sent by God to help the man in trouble. The priest was the one who offered sacrifice to God in the Temple in Jerusalem. So, he would appear to be a potential helper.
But, against expectation, the priest sees the man who is in trouble, and he chooses to pass by on the other side. Perhaps the priest remembered the Scripture that says, “Those who touch the dead body of any human being shall be unclean seven days.” (Numbers 19:11) From a distance, the priest could not be sure, but the man lying in the road might be dead. If he touched him to find out, or to help, then he might be ritually defiled and that would mean losing his turn of duty in the Temple. Apparently, the priest did not want to risk that. As William Barclay says, “He set the claims of ceremonial above those of charity. The Temple and its liturgy meant more to him than the pain of man.”
The third character in Jesus’ story is the Levite. A Levite was originally a descendant of the tribe of Levi to whom was committed the priesthood in the Israelite tabernacle and later, the Temple. Since this man is designated a Levite and not a priest, we should picture him as being an assistant priest of sorts.
Perhaps the Levite drew a little bit closer to the man in the ditch, but then he chose to pass by on the other side just like the priest. If we were hoping that the Levite might show kindness because he was younger and more naïve about the ways of the world than the experienced priest, we are disappointed.
Perhaps the Levite’s concern was the same as the priest. Perhaps he did not want to become ritually defiled. Or maybe he feared that the seemingly dead man beside the road was a decoy. Sometimes robbers had one person in their band pose as someone in trouble, and then the others would rush in to rob the unsuspecting person who stopped to help. In any case, the life motto of the Levite seemed to be “safety first”. In this situation he was not going to take the risk to help someone lying by the side of the road.
The fourth character in Jesus’ story is the Samaritan. The first hearers of Jesus’ story, upon the introduction of the Samaritan to the tale, would naturally assume that the villain had arrived.
You may remember from a couple of weeks ago how we talked about how the Samaritans were despised by the Jews because they were “half-breeds”. To use Harry Potter terminology, they were half-bloods.
Thus, Jesus subverts all Jewish expectation in the telling of this tale. Jesus’ Jewish listeners would expect a priest or Levite to help. But they don’t. His Jewish listeners would expect the Samaritan to do something rotten, but on the contrary, the Samaritan is the one who helps.
The Samaritan is the only one in this story who Jesus tells us is moved with pity. He is the only one who truly draws close to the wounded man. The Samaritan is the only one who helps. And miracle of miracles, when they get to the inn, we find that the Samaritan has good credit with the innkeeper.
Perhaps one application of this story then is the suggestion that in the end we may be judged not by our creed but by the life we have lived and the help we have offered to those in need. There is, of course, another parable told by Jesus in Matthew 25 that makes exactly this point.
The Application
So, let’s look at the application that Jesus offers from this story to our everyday lives…
Jesus makes the application of this story very clear by asking the lawyer, “Which of these three, the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
Notice that in his answer, the lawyer does not even want to mention the hated word “Samaritan”. The lawyer grudgingly says to Jesus, “The one who showed him mercy.”
And Jesus says to the lawyer and to us, “Go and do likewise.”
If we want to get the hang of how contemporary and pointed Jesus’ story was, all we have to do is translate the story into another time and place. If you lived in Northern Ireland the story would go like this: “An Irish Republican fell among thieves, and an Ulster Orangeman came and helped him out.” Or if this story was told in Africa it would go like this: “A white colonialist fell among thieves, and a black freedom fighter came to his aid.”[1] Maybe in our own time and place the story would go like this: “A Trump supporter fell among thieves, and a man who was feeling the Bern helped him out.” Or how about this: “Someone from the LGBT community fell among thieves, and a flaming evangelical rescued him.”
In a somewhat subtle and clever way, Jesus has made the clear point that the lawyer’s question was wrong in the first place. The lawyer’s question and ours should not be, “Who is my neighbor?” but rather, “To whom can I be a neighbor?”
And of course, the answer to that question is: “We can each be a neighbor to anyone who crosses our path any day of the week.” We should not exempt anyone from our potential circle of care.
William Barclay offers these three excellent applications of this story:
- We must help a person even when that person has brought trouble on themselves.
- Any person of any nation who is in need is our neighbor. Our help must be as wide as the love of God.
- Our help must be practical and not consist merely in feeling sorry. No doubt the priest and the Levite might have felt a pang of pity for the wounded man in the ditch, but they did nothing. Compassion, to be real, must issue in deeds.
What Jesus said to the lawyer, he says to us: “Go and do likewise.”
[1]Michael Wilcock, The Message of Luke, Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1979, p. 123.
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