Is there anything new to say about the Good Samaritan?
This Sunday's gospel lectionary reading is Luke ten.25-37, almost commonly known as the Parable of the Skillful Samaritan. I suspect many people preaching on this volition exist looking to wring some new truth from this, but might well lapse back into the 'Jesus wants u.s.a. to exercise proficient to others' trope. It might be difficult to find annihilation new to say on such a well-known story—such is the ability of Jesus' story telling that the phrase 'pass past on the other side' and the description of someone as a 'Expert Samaritan' take passed into proverbial English utilize (though I don't know if that is true of other cultures and languages).
But as I have reflected on the story during this week, it occurs to me that in that location are a number of mutual misuses of the story.
- Antinomianism: 'Jesus wanted to exercise away with legalism and the Mosaic law; in the end, all that matters is caring for people'.
- Reductionism: 'Jesus only gave us 2 commandments, and both of them were positive'.
- Moral 'oughterism': 'Jesus told united states of america that nosotros ought to care for people, then this I what nosotros ought to practice.'
- Liberal inclusivism: 'The parable uses a despised outsider equally the model of right action, then the truth is found in the lives of the marginalised.'
Some conscientious attention to the biblical text addresses these issues and offers us a improve understanding of what is going on.
Offset, we demand to note that, though the story Jesus tells is just in Luke, the question of which is the greatest commandment comes in all three Synoptic gospels. It is not clear whether each of the writers puts his ain interpretive angle on the encounter, or whether in fact this question arose on more than than one occasion; if Jesus did indeed minister for the all-time part of three years (as the Fourth Gospel suggests), and then the latter option is highly likely.
| Matthew 22:34-forty | Marking 12:28-31 | Luke ten:25-28 |
| Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Dear the Lord your God with all your centre and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Dearest your neighbour every bit yourself.' All the Police force and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." | Ane of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good respond, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the virtually of import?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Dearest the Lord your God with all your center and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your force.' The 2d is this: 'Dearest your neighbor equally yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." | On 1 occasion an expert in the police force stood up to examination Jesus. "Instructor," he asked, "what must I practise to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered, "'Dearest the Lord your God with all your centre and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." |
At that place are things to notation nearly the differences hither. Every bit is common, Marking'southward account of the opening dialogue is longer and more than detailed than either Luke or Matthew; Marking includes the introduction to the Shema from Deut half-dozen.iv that Jesus quotes, and Jesus goes on to commend the 'lawyer' and note that he is 'not far from the kingdom of God.' [We need to notation the quite different sense of 'law' and 'lawyer' here; we are looking at a dispute about religious texts, and debates betwixt the religious 'experts'; and the 'law' was the first 5 books of the Bible, much of which was narrative.] Luke has interpreted this, perchance for an audition less familiar with Jewish theological terms, into the promise that 'you volition live', though has the answer on the lips of the questioner rather than Jesus. Both Matthew and Luke interpret the question as somewhat negative, whilst Mark's interpretation is more than positive.
The second thing to be enlightened of is that the request for a summary of the law has some very clear parallels. In Jesus' twenty-four hour period, ii of the primary rabbinical schools were those of Hillel (kickoff century BC) and the later Shammai (50 BC—Advertisement 30). Hillel and his school were generally thought to be more relaxed and open in their thinking, whereas Shammai and his school were often more rigorist—and then Jesus is frequently compared with Hillel in his approach.
1 famous business relationship in theTalmud (Shabbat 31a) tells about a gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism. This happened not infrequently, and this private stated that he would have Judaism just if a rabbi would teach him the entire Torah while he, the prospective convert, stood on one foot. First he went to Shammai, who, insulted past this ridiculous asking, threw him out of the firm. The man did not give up and went to Hillel. This gentle sage accepted the claiming, and said:
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary—go and study it!"
(It is worth noting that with regards to ethical teaching, Jesus is often more in understanding with the school of Shammai, the most hitting case being that of divorce. John Ortberg summarises David Instone-Brewer's take on this on beliefnet.com)
It is important to spot what Hillel is doing here. He is non telling the would-be convert that at that place is only one commandment and that is all he needs to know. Instead, the man needs to become away and study Torah—just at present knowing what it is fundamentally near, so that he does not fail to see the forest for the trees. There is, we might say, a mutual interpretive dynamic at work. If I want to make sense of the individual commandments, then I need to know the big motion-picture show that they are building into. Simply if I want to live out the big flick, I do need to study the individual commandments and the detail.
At that place seems to exist something similar going on in the teaching of Jesus. It always strikes me as odd that so many read individual commandments of Jesus as if they were just features of an interesting text, and non the product of a heed that had a coherent and integrated outlook. Of form, Jesus offers us many commandments, not just two ('turn the other cheek', 'bless those who persecute you lot', 'do not worry', 'do non judge' and so on), so the question is: how does his summary of the police relate to his other teaching?
Although it seems odd to us now, in reading the gospels, to find such a compelling story only in one gospel is not that surprising, given that each gospel has its own unique cloth, and given both the extensive nature of Jesus' teaching and ministry, and the strictly express space that each writer had. In a brief conversation I had on the London Hush-hush this week with an English language Literature graduate, he commented that he had always found the Bible 'very dumbo' to read—and I replied that this was because the ancient writers had infinite for few words, so used each of them to the total! That besides meant being highly selective about what they included.
Luke has a distinctive interest in Jewish-Samaritan relationships, including the rejection of Jesus past Samaritans in the previous affiliate, and the mention of the grateful leper in Luke 17.sixteen who was a Samaritan, every bit well as recounting the Samaritan 'mission' in Acts 8.25f. It is striking that Luke assumes his readers know near the enmity between Jews and Samaritans, even though he appears clearly to be writing for a non-Jewish audience. It is quite difficult to capture the rhetorical impact of the mention of the Samaritan, in contrast to the very respectable figures of the priest and the Levite, and English translations miss the emphasis in the text with the give-and-take 'Samaritan' coming first in verse 33, in dissimilarity to the mention of the other 2 figures in the previous verses. In the 1980s, the Riding Lights Theatre Visitor retold it as the Parable of the Good Punk Rocker (on the train from London to York, 'London to York, London to York'…) which attempted to replicate this effect. We might do well to try and find a similar contrast in our ain day.
It might be claimed that this demonstrates Luke's focus on the marginalised and the outsider—but Luke besides mentions the wealthy (in a positive light) and influential Jewish leaders more than than the other gospels. Then his focus is not so much that the gospel is for the marginalised, simply that the gospel is forboth the marginalised and the wealthy, both insider and outsider equally.
We also need to note that the parable does not contrast legalism with compassion, since the Mosaic law also demands that we care for the stranger—in fact (rather ironically) this part of the summary of the law ('Beloved your neighbor as yourself') comes from the heart of what some readers would see as the well-nigh problematic law text in the Old Testament, Leviticus 19.eighteen, not even a total affiliate later than the notorious Leviticus 18.22! The issue isnot compassion versus law, but the right understanding of the law, and the possibility of using Scriptural teaching for 1'south ain convenience rather than for the purpose for which it was intended.
The last observation is maybe the most important. The parable has been interpreted in a wide range of different ways, and one of the all-time known (though least persuasive for modern readers) is the allegorical reading outset proposed by Origen:
The man who was going downward is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord's body, the [inn], which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church. … The manager of the [inn] is the caput of the Church building, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior's second coming. (Homily 34.3)
This reading was virtually universal throughout early on Christianity, being advocated by Irenaeus, Clement also as Origen, and in the fourth and 5th centuries past Chrysostom in Constantinople, Ambrose in Milan, and Augustine of Hippo—whose version is perhaps best known:
A sure man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; Adam himself is meant; Jerusalem is the heavenly metropolis of peace, from whose blessedness Adam fell; Jericho means the moon, and signifies our mortality, considering it is born, waxes, wanes, an dies. Thieves are the devil and his angels. Who stripped him, namely; of his immortality; and beat him, past persuading him to sin; and left him half-expressionless, considering in and so far as human being can empathize and know God, he lives, but in so far as he is wasted and oppressed by sin, he is expressionless; he is therefore called half-dead. The priest and the Levite who saw him and passed by, signify the priesthood and ministry of the One-time Testament which could profit zilch for conservancy. Samaritan ways Guardian, and therefore the Lord Himself is signified by this name. The binding of the wounds is the restraint of sin. Oil is the comfort of good hope; wine the exhortation to work with fervent spirit. The brute is the flesh in which He deigned to come to us. The being set up upon the brute is belief in the incarnation of Christ. The inn is the Church, where travelers returning to their heavenly land are refreshed after pilgrimage. The morrow is afterwards the resurrection of the Lord. The ii pence are either the two precepts of love, or the promise of this life and of that which is to come.
There are all sorts of problems with this approach to the text, not to the lowest degree that it appears to have footling connection with what Jesus actually meant, but likewise that information technology appears to annul the moral imperative. Simply the modern reaction to such a reading is to caput in the opposite direction, and reduce the touch on to mere practical morality, devoid of any Christological significance and detached from what the rest of the New Testament says about sin, amende and ethics.
In fact, Luke's careful arroyo to numerical composition helps us here. The turning indicate of the story is that the Samaritan sees the man, and is 'moved with compassion' (some ETs blunt this a footling by maxim 'had pity on him'). The Greek term here, splagchnizomai, 'literally' means 'his bowels were moved' (hence the AV translates the cognate term in Phil i.8 'I yearn for you with the bowels of Christ'). This term only occurs 3 times in Luke'due south gospel:
- Luke vii.thirteen The raising of the widow's son
- Luke x.33 The parable of the human being who cruel amidst thieves
- Luke fifteen.20 The parable of the 2 sons and the forgiving father
And in each case, non but is this verb the narrative turning bespeak of the story—it is also the discussion which is numerically at the heart of each pericope, with an equal number of words before and subsequently this term, to emphasise its importance. (This also tells us something about the care with which Luke has composed his gospel!).
And the striking thing is that, in the other 2 instances, it isJesus who is moved to compassionate activeness. This implies that, whilst the allegorical reading has major problems, it has at to the lowest degree noted ane thing of importance: it is the Samaritan who is taking the part of Jesus in the story. We might want, then, to reflect further and sympathize theologically that, beaten and bruised every bit nosotros have been by sin, information technology is Jesus who has refused to pass by on the other side, but who has brought u.s. aid and healing by paying the price that was needed for us.
This is non to rob the story (pun non intended!) of its moral force—just it shifts the annals. We practise non aid others considering we 'ought' to, but because we take received for ourselves from Jesus the life-irresolute compassion which we then share with those around us, as part of sharing the dear of God in word and deed.
We love because he first loved u.s.. If we say we love God yet detest a brother or sister, we are liars. For if we exercise non love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, nosotros cannot dearest God, whom we accept non seen. And he has given united states this command: Those who love God must also love one some other. (1 John iv.19–21)
Every bit y'all get, proclaim this message: 'The kingdom of heaven has come almost.' Heal the sick, raise the expressionless, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you take received, freely give. (Matt x.7–8)
The practical lesson of the Parable of the Good Samaritan is to give to others what we have already been given.
(Some of this content was published in an earlier article in 2017).
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