The Good Samaritan

A religious lawyer, wanting to test Jesus, asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus turns it back on him, and the man answers correctly: love God, love your neighbor. Do that and you will live, Jesus says. But the lawyer wants a boundary. And who, exactly, is my neighbor?

Jesus answers with a story. A man traveling the dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho is attacked by robbers, stripped, beaten, and left half dead. A priest comes down the road, sees him, and passes by on the other side. A Levite, a temple official, does the same. Both had reasons; touching a dying man risked ritual impurity, and there were rules. The system gave them an exit, and they took it.

Then a Samaritan comes along. To Jesus' audience this word landed like a slap. Jews and Samaritans despised each other across centuries of ethnic and religious hostility. The Samaritan is the last character anyone expected to be the hero. He sees the man, is moved with pity, bandages his wounds, puts him on his own animal, brings him to an inn, pays the bill, and promises to cover whatever else it costs.

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.

Luke 10:36-37

Notice the move Jesus makes. The lawyer asked, who qualifies as my neighbor, a question about limits. Jesus answers a different question: will you be a neighbor, a question about you. He replaces the boundary with a posture.

A modern version writes itself. Your car dies on the shoulder. The person with the church bumper sticker sweeps past, late for a service. The nonprofit executive is on an important call. The one who pulls over is the person whose politics you cannot stand. Mercy has a way of ignoring the categories we protect.

Tomorrow you hit the halfway mark, and we talk about what a shepherd does at night.