“An unlikely, unexpected hero”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Sunday, July 10, 2022

Luke 10:25-37 (Forward, p. 73) GNB p. 91

I’m guessing that most of us have heard humorous where the punch line can be modified according to the teller and the audience. Let me re-tell just one of them, just in case this genre is not familiar to you. A certain Christian gentleman, having died, was being shown around heaven by St. Peter. As they approached a certain doorway, St. Peter motioned to the man not to make a sound. After they had passed that doorway, the man couldn’t help but wonder what that was all about. ‘Oh,’ said St. Peter, ‘that was the Baptists; they think they’re the only ones here.’ Well, as you might well guess, that story could take many forms depending on who told it and what he or her audience was. Instead of the Baptists being singled out, it could be the Catholics, Pentecostals, Anglicans or any other Christian denomination.

From what I have heard, the Parable of the Good Samaritan was a bit like that. The Parable was widely known, and widely used, with the only variation being who emerged as the hero of the story. If someone sympathetic to the priests told it, it would emerge that a priest was the hero, or a Pharisee if a friend of the Pharisees, then a Pharisee. And so on it went.

Who was never ever imagined, much less mentioned, as a hero was a Samaritan. Samaritans were treated as half-breeds, outsiders and heretics. They were reckoned as enemies of the Jews, and in some ways, were seen as even worse than the usual ‘run-of-the-mill’ pagans. That was because they claimed to worship correctly and have the proper Scriptures and temple. That was enough to rile any self-respecting Jews. (You will notice that the teacher of the Law in our story couldn’t even bring himself to say the word ‘Samaritan’, simply choosing instead only to refer to him as ‘the one who was kind to him.’ Such was the loathing that most Jews felt towards any Samaritan, regardless of who they were or what they did.)

But let’s come back to the teacher of the Law for a moment. We are told several other things about him, other than his utter disregard and disgust in terms of Samaritans. Firstly, he came up to Jesus with the express purpose of trying to trap Him, trying to trip Him up. His question, while we can’t be sure just where he was going with it, was anything but sincere or honest. I am sure that he was trying to make Jesus look bad in some way.

Now note his question: “Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” Perhaps he was hoping that Jesus would say something like ‘have faith in the One that God has sent’ (as He is quoted as saying in John’s Gospel). That certainly would be enough to get tongues wagging and get Jesus in trouble!

No, instead, the teacher of the Law focused on two things most dear to his people, his profession. He asked, what must I do? The focus is on himself, and how he might earn salvation. And, presumably, being a teacher of the Law, this should be something contained in the Law. So, not only is he emphasizing himself and his performance, he is also putting Jesus on the spot, in asking Him to single out just one or a few things from that rather lengthy Law. No matter what Jesus answered there would probably be someone who disagreed with Him!

However, as is often the case, Jesus turned the tables on him. He asks him what he would choose. To us, this is old hat, because what does he quote, but what we know as the Summary of the Law. And, according to some scholars, it was ‘old hat’ back then as well, being often quoted or used as a summary.

Jesus then affirmed the man as being ‘spot on’, but that was not enough for the man. He wanted to be justified, to be seen as right with God. He wanted to prove that he indeed had lived up to that summary, and so, in response to its second phrase, he asked, “And just who is my neighbour?” That is, “who am I to love as much as I love myself?” Presumably, like many ‘legal beagles’, many people caught up in the nuances of the Law, he wanted to limit his liability and responsibility. In other words, the fewer neighbours he had, the better: fewer people that he needed to love. And if they were people just like himself, that would be great!

Jesus responded with this totally subversive story that we know as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The hero was not a teacher of the Law, a scribe, a Pharisee, a Sadducee, a priest, or a Levite, any of the expected characters. And it was not even someone on the periphery of Jewish life, an Essene, or a Zealot, a Roman, or even a despised tax collector. The hero was totally unexpected, a Samaritan. He, it turned out, was the neighbour, the one the teacher of the Law was supposed to love. Yuck. I am sure that he was most disappointed.

So, what are we to make of this parable? An obvious answer is that we should love all others, even those with whom we have no affinity and no reason to like or approve of, with this kind of self-sacrificing love, this total neighbourliness. We are to be like God, like Christ, is this.

But then, this brings us to yet another level: who is it who demonstrates this kind of love? Who is it who acts like a neighbour in such a total, self-giving way? It is Jesus, of course. And so, perhaps, we are not only to be like Him, to imitate Him, but also to love Him, the epitome of what it means to be a neighbour. (That Jesus, in derision, was once referred to as a Samaritan, just makes it all the more evident). And so we are to love Jesus, ‘as we love ourselves.’ Amen.

Forward notes: “But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?’” (verse 29)

“When we read parables, it’s hard not to identify ‘who’s who’—which character represents God? Who represents doing the right thing, the wrong thing? Samaritans were an ethnic minority who had mutual enmity with the Jewish people. When the Samaritan entered Jesus’s parable, his listeners were bound to take notice.

“If this parable were like many others, it would be the Samaritan who was lying in the ditch, a wounded foe; perhaps with the message to love thine enemies, and whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.

“But Jesus turns the tables. Love has taken the guise of the hated outcast; the enemy is revealed to be the neighbour at heart, and we are the ones in need of mercy.

“To see God at work in our lives, sometimes it is not enough to try and love our enemies...we have to see those enemies for the neighbours God has made us all to be.”

Moving Forward: “Reread this passage from Luke. Ask yourself, ‘Who is my neighbour? How do I show God’s love to them?’

A concluding note: Actually, our author misses the point. The point isn’t who is our neighbour, my neighbour, but who am I neighbour to? And, am I willing to be neighbour even to those that I don’t particular like or who rile us up, those that we don’t want to be friendly to--yes, even toward those that I might even characterize as my ‘enemy’ or opponent?