Luke 10. 25-37 Showing the Father's love through compassionate action

 “Who is my neighbour.”  
We all know the "Story of the Good Samaritan" - but in order to get what it's saying , we need also to know the story of the story.    This lawyer – an expert in the Old Testament  and probably sympathetic to the Pharisee party – came to check Jesus out: “What qualifies me for eternal life?  What  do I need to do?" Jesus answers with a reasonable enough question, “What does the book say?”  The lawyer is easily within his specialist area: “Love God, (Deut 6:5)  love neighbour (Lev 19:18)...”  Then Jesus says , "OK,do that and you have eternal life.”  That's simple enough.  The man maybe feels embarrassed he's made such a big issue of asking a fairly obvious question. Maybe he wants to find exactly how far this command actually extends. There is a theological point he needs to clear up.  “Who is my neighbour?” 

What should my attitude be to those who are outside of the Jewish race?  What should my attitude be to Romans, Greeks, Samaritans, Africans?  There's actually quite a lot of personal and cultural baggage hiding behind that question.  “Who is my neighbour?”

Jesus answers this time by telling a story.  “Once there was  man who got beaten up and robbed going from Jerusalem to Jericho.  Along came a priest.”  Everyone who was listening (Pharisee scribe as well as working people) would get a good laugh at that: priests and Levites were seen as toffs and hypocrites who benefited from the law that forced everyone to bring sacrifices and offerings but didn't keep the law themselves. 

The parable of the Good Samaritan by Conti

But nobody would be laughing as the next part of the story unfolded: “a Samaritan came along and helped the injured man with extravagant unstinting generosity at his own expense!" A denarius would buy you twelve days worth of bed and breakfast: this was going to cost the Samaritan a lot of money!.  And there was a considerable risk to himself if the robbers were still around.  Everyone would be spluttering.  Jews don't have anything to do with Samaritans.  There had been ugly incidents – on one occasion a group of Samaritans had thrown bones into the Temple during the Passover... a clear insult.  A few years later it would erupt into  violence.  The Lawyer, with his question, “Who is my neighbour?” would have a real sense of shock and challenge at the idea that a hated and despised Samaritan could perform an act of love and kindness for a Jew.  In fact Jews were not supposed to receive works of love or mercy from non-Jews.  Samaritans were kind of seen as people who should be Jewish but had broken away.   This story pushes into strange and dangerous territory.

"Becoming a neighbour"
Jesus then brings the point home, with at question of his own.   “Who was (literally became) neighbour to the man who was the victim of the crime?”   The idea of a “neighbour” for the lawyer was something to debate and discuss: “Who is my neighbour” precisely defines the limits of who I've got to love!

In the OT a neighbour was “an associate” of any sort and could be a companion, friend, or family member.  It's vague, deliberately so; and its roots are active, not passive. The root of the Hebrew word means “to tend a flock, that is, pasture it.”    It's not so much a matter of defining “Who is my neighbour” as simply being a neighbour.

Rembrandt's "Good Samaritan"

The priest and the Levite, walking by on the other side (more likely because they were going home to dinner than because they were going to work: Jericho was where a  lot of the priests lived) showed a  complete lack of concern or love or compassion for the injured man.  But the Samaritan showed exactly what it is to be a neighbour, with his risky delay on the road, gentle first aid and costly financial help.  This is what it is to be a neighbour.  This is how we are meant to live as disciples. This is how followers of Jesus are meant to live, showing mercy not just to each other but to any lost hungry sheep.  Mercy to the last, the lost and the least is part of our call as Kingdom people. 

To someone who had asked “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus says “Who was this needy, broken guy's neighbour?”  Crestfallen and embarrassed, the lawyer sees he isn’t going to get the better of Jesus.  “I suppose,” he grudgingly admits, “the one who showed mercy (or compassion)”.  He can't bring himself to say "It was the Samaritan."

Put yourself in the situation of the guy who got beaten up.  How does he feel when he realises the man who is standing over him is a Samaritan?  Is he expecting another beating?  How does he feel about Samaritans when he is resting up in the inn (at the Samaritan’s expense?  

Compassion will take you out of your comfort zone,  into a  place where you yourself are needy and vulnerable.  It's really interesting that Jesus broke the conventions and shattered the stereotypes by sitting down beside a well in a Samaritan village, and asked a Samaritan woman to give him a drink! 

To demonstrate the father's love by showing compassion will  bring  you to abandon prejudice, resentment, fear and self-interest.  It will call you to become a neighbour to the last the lost and the least. 

"Go and do the same"
 Jesus doesn't really answer the question “Who is my neighbour?”  He is more interested in the question “how do I show love?”  That’s what the Samaritan teaches us.  And Jesus finishes the whole conversation off at exactly the place where the lawyer started it.  Remember he had begun by asking, “What must I do to have eternal life?”   Once the lawyer  had admitted that the person who became a neighbour, who tended the broken one,who showed love, was the Samaritan, Jesus said, “Go and do the same.” 

That's what you do to inherit eternal life: do what the Samaritan did.  This isn't something to have great long debates about: “is it really gospel work, to feed the hungry?  Is it really Gospel work to sit with someone who is lonely or  to wipe the face of a disabled adult?” Well, yes, it is. 

One practical illustration, from many: there are people who are teaching “birth life saving skills” to expectant mums and dads in the developing world. A lot of is is very simple: just recognising the danger signs when something isn't going right. The result?  Mums get to hospital or get  a midwife called out if there are complications; lives, and souls  are saved regularly as a result.

Or think abut a little Methodist church in an English village.  It was dwindling – almost closed down.  But there was a school in the village, and as often happens in villages as well as towns,there were  children turning up for school without having had any breakfast. The little group of ladies in the church had been thinking, “what can we do to serve our community?”  Then  they realised “We can make toast!”  A breakfast club was launched and as a result that wee church began to thrive and grow as its members served the community.

Demonstrating the Father’s love through character; demonstrating the Father's love through compassion.  It's the boring, ordinary stuff.  But it makes a difference.  It is part of discipleship and it is part of mission.  It's not something just to be talked about.   Go and do it.


© Gilmour Lilly September 2012