‘The Parable of the Good Samaritan’- Remembrance Sunday 2011 Luke Chapter 10 verses 25 - 37

‘The Parable of the Good Samaritan’- Remembrance Sunday 2011

Luke Chapter 10 verses 25 - 37

Our Gospel reading this morning is probably the most well-known of Jesus’ parables: certainly its hero has entered into not only the English language to describe anyone who comes to the rescue of another. But this parable is very much more than just an ethical exhortation to reach out to those in need. Some of you may be wondering why I chose it for today, for Remembrance Sunday. Well, let me tell you. I did so, first, because it deals with the kind of prejudices and hatred that cause wars – so that alone, it seems to me, makes it a good choice for today: but, secondly, because it offers us a solution, an antidote to those prejudices and hatreds that fuel wars however large, however small.

The story takes place within a dialogue between Jesus and a lawyer. (Poor old lawyers; they do come off rather badly in the Gospels.) But it was not an innocent question this lawyer asked. No, if we consider the context and what has gone before, we must realise that they are out for his blood, in which of course they did eventually succeed because of his claims about himself, his claims to be God in human flesh; in short, his blasphemy.

By Jesus’ day, the idea had grown up that by keeping the law of God, a devout Jew could inherit eternal life (Heaven, if you prefer). This was a very exclusivist teaching however and went against what Moses and the Prophets had actually taught; which was that eternal life is in fact God’s gift, that he would bestow it on whom he saw fit, and that this inheritance was available to all, regardless of race: to all, that is, who would be reconciled to him – wherein of course lies the rub.

But Jesus, instead of repeating what Moses and the prophets had taught, decides to take up this popular current idea (that by obeying the law a person can make themselves acceptable to God and so gain eternal life) and pushes the lawyer’s understanding to see just where it leads. Jesus was always wanting to educate people out of their erroneous presuppositions about God and into true knowledge of him - even at the cost of his own well-being: and he assaulted any prejudices or hatred he encountered because these could have no place in his Kingdom.  Jesus, then, does not offer his own view but very skilfully gets the lawyer to think more deeply about where his, the lawyer’s, views on the law actually lead.

The lawyer – cunning chaps that they are – in reply gives Jesus Jesus’ own summary of the law. Doubtless he had heard it or heard of it. Jesus commends his knowledge but then challenges him to believe what he claims he knows. ‘You have the right belief but will you act upon it?’ That must surely always be the question for us too: it is not enough simply our knowing what we ought to do for others, or our just having sympathy for them. 

Will we act? Will we put into practice the second commandment?

Jesus is widening the discussion here from eternal life to all of life; and in his reply (verse 27) to Jesus, hasn’t the lawyer himself just stated a standard that no one, by their own efforts, can EVER fully reach?

(One of the reasons Jesus changed round the sequence in the two great commandments was because he knew that a person cannot possibly truly love their neighbour as themself unless they also truly love God. Oh yes, such an idea was as controversial in his day as it still is in ours; so we had better leave that one for another day. I am simply presenting what Jesus taught.)

So Jesus does not give the lawyer the list he wants of things that he can do: instead, in terms of keeping the law, he teaches a requirement of total commitment to God and to neighbour. Both Jesus and St. Paul teach that complete obedience to this ‘Royal law’, as it is sometimes called, is the way to get right with God: the problem, as they also taught, is that no one except Jesus has ever been able to do so! This is why Jesus (God incarnate, God choosing to be born a man) is the only solution.  He alone is able to do what we cannot do: he alone can graciously grant us eternal life as a gift through faith in him - through our humble admission that we cannot, and our grateful faith that he can.

But this lawyer, like many people who believe they do well enough on their own and deserve, by their accumulated good deeds or their success or their fine character, to inherit eternal life, persists in his belief that he can do something to gain it. He just does not realise that it is only by God’s mercy (which comes through faith in this Jesus) that he may live and inherit eternal life. He does not want to live through faith in God’s grace and mercy: he does not even know what these are. He is too proud. He actually lives by something quite different from mercy; he lives by his own good intentions and perceived ability to present himself as a righteous man before God. Human pride is indeed a most powerful force; but  how misleading it can be!

The lawyer, wanting to justify himself, wanting to hear from Jesus the then current definition of neighbour as being ‘family and friends’ (to whom obviously he reckons he has been good and can claim such) puts his next, seemingly innocent, question.                                The parable is Jesus’ response.

Jerusalem to Jericho is a 17 mile long descent through inhospitable desert. The Crusaders later built a fort half way along the route in order to protect pilgrims from attack by robbers. In the Middle East there are a whole host of different ethnic-religious communities easily identifiable by their language, their accent, and their dress. 

The beaten up, stripped naked, man could not therefore be identified: he had been reduced to a mere human being in need. The parable assumes that each passer-by could have helped. The first, the priest – priests generally fare even less well than lawyers in the Gospels! – was not only worried about the robbers but also  about making himself ritually unclean if he even approached within a few feet of a dead man.  

Were he to become contaminated, he would be unable to perform his priestly duties, he would have to go through a lengthy process of cleansing, and there would be great social stigma incurred as a result. He would be letting down his family and acquaintances. In short, his passing by on the other side shows that he was the victim of the rule book and of peer pressure. Life for him was a love restricting codified system of do’s and don’ts.  And of course there is a safety and a comfort in such systems; which is another reason why the Gospel of Jesus Christ so often falls on the deaf ears of such people. Why? Well because it demands that we submit our cosy legalism to the risky challenge of operating outside of those comforting but debilitating social and religious constraints that prevent us from keeping the two great commandments as we ought.

He passes by, and the next passer-by’s, the Levite’s, excuses would be pretty much the same as the priest.

Jesus’ listeners would have had every sympathy with both; after all, they were simply upholding the religious and social norms of behaviour. ‘I wonder who will be next along, they ask themselves.’ Jesus could perhaps have told a story about a foolish but gallant young Jewish boy who rescues the man; but no, in choosing a Samaritan, the heretical, traditional enemy, he speaks to one of his audiences’ deepest hatreds, and painfully exposes it.

Now the Samaritan was not a gentile: he was bound by the same Torah, the same Old Testament teaching, as the Jew. But he is the one who shows compassion, the one who lives out the law as Moses and the prophets had expounded it.

Almost certainly, the Levite would have known that there was a priest ahead of him on the road: this gave him in fact a kind of perverse permission to not help the man either. The Samaritan too would have known, almost certainly, who was ahead of him and that the two had not come to the aid of the man who was very probably a Jew himself. So why should he intervene? Did they know something he does not know? But no; he has compassion on the man, ‘binds up his wounds’ (the very same language used of God’s coming to the aid of the Israelites), and takes him on to Jericho and to the inn, not only at great expense to himself but also at great danger from both robbers and Jews. The Samaritan demonstrates quite unexpected love to this stranger, this fellow human being. His race is simply not an issue. This is why this parable is such an appropriate one for Remembrance Sunday: in studying it we are shown both some of the ridiculous prejudices and hatreds that cause wars and the right response to them for anyone who would follow Jesus Christ.

Jesus will not give the Lawyer his list of things to do, nor will he state who is and who is not the lawyer’s neighbour. Rather, he re-shapes the lawyer’s question, asking him – and therefore you and me – ‘to whom must we, he, become a neighbour?’

This last statement of Jesus’ is not a general admonition to good works but simply his answer to the lawyer’s question trying to justify himself. ‘You want a list of do’s and who’s? That’s not what the law is about. Here is the standard you must meet: think of the worst religious, or social faux pas you could possibly make, not only that but at great cost and danger to yourself, and then go and do it should you find any human being in need – no matter their race, their colour, their creed, their class.

Yet here is the rub. Yes, this is the standard if you want to get to Heaven by your own efforts: but who can achieve this? Our sins are not only the bad things we do but also, and perhaps on the basis of this parable we must understand that they are much more so, the good we fail to do. And always it is a failure to love – of God or of our neighbour as ourself. But with God all things are possible. And as perhaps the lawyer and the audience were beginning to realise as they studied the ministry and teaching and claims of Jesus, here was one who acted as and claimed to be the one who could give the answers to all their questions; indeed could help them to frame their questions in the right way. ‘No one’, they were wont to exclaim, ‘ever taught like this!’

The standard Jesus taught remains, even though it is impossibly high; impossibly high for you and for me because of our essential selfishness and pride, tainted as these are by all manner of religious, social, and other prejudices.

The original audience would have been in no doubt that here was Jesus, once again, not only saying to them ‘away with all your pernicious prejudices that are the cause of the enmity between us and the Samaritans and many more besides’, but also telling them something very profound about himself. They have seen him healing people, forgiving them their sins, restoring them to life. I am sure many of them must have been asking themselves how could he tell such a story, unless....’

So today, as we remember – as we always must - those who gave their lives in order that we might live, let us remind ourselves of the pernicious prejudices and hatreds that cause wars and resolve not to allow them, whatever the cost, to get the better of us; but let us also not forget but indeed open the door of our lives to the one who laid down his life in order that we might find life in all its fullness, a life that may only be discovered through repentance and faith, and which, by walking together with the risen Christ in the way of the Royal Law, leads to eternal life.

The standard set is indeed impossible for us to achieve on our own. But God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself: he has made it possible. I pray that the Lord Jesus Christ may grant us all the wisdom to see him more clearly, the humility to accept him, and the grace to walk with him day by day and no matter the personal cost to ourselves.