An Upside Down Parable

Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian pastor who became known to thousands of children as a television character named Mr. Rogers, began every one of his television shows with that song:  “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor, would be mine?  Could you be mine?”  Mr. Rogers had lots of “neighbors” and they all came into his house to teach us something about life or the world in which we live.    Mr. Rogers is gone now, but many of us still remember that little jingle that started his show and the good feeling we had about each one of his neighbors.  We truly felt like they could all live in our neighborhood.  I am not sure that we would all be as comfortable with the one whom Jesus used as an example of a neighbor in our text today.  

There were crowds around Jesus wherever he went and, for the most part, they were just content to be near him.  But when this lawyer, probably a Pharisee, stepped forward to question Jesus about the law, I am sure they all stopped what they were doing to listen.  There were several reasons why.  As a religious teacher or an expert in the law, any conversation this lawyer had on the topic of the law would have attracted some attention.  The crowds around Jesus knew that he could hold his own in any such discussion.  Even the Greeks would have been interested, for they loved a good debate or discussion, particularly one based in logic and fact.  When the lawyer asked Jesus to explain who his neighbor was, Jesus told him the story of the Good Samaritan.  But when he did so, he put some unexpected things into the story and those things turned the entire story upside down.

            The story of the Good Samaritan is used to support the outreach and mission of many organizations, both sacred and secular.  Hospitals, counseling services, food kitchens, and other ministries that serve people have been named after this secularized saint from scripture.  But when we, as Christians think of the Good Samaritan, we usually think of good works that are done by the privileged and prosperous mainstream for those who are marginalized, down on their luck, and destitute.  That’s not quite the way that the story Jesus told unfolds. 

This was a story told by a Jew to other Jews, so the assumption of Jesus’ listeners would have been that this man, the traveler, was also a Jew.  If we are in the story at all, we are this man.  According to Josephus, a first century writer, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was seventeen miles of desolate, rocky country road.  It was all downhill, going from David’s city on a hill, Jerusalem, at 2,500 feet above sea level to the City of Palms, Jericho, at 800 feet below sea level… the lowest place on earth not covered by water.  It was known as a dangerous road, filled with thieves, even into the fourth century, as confirmed by Jerome, a religious writer. Jesus did not say that this man was a wealthy man… just that he fell among thieves or robbers, who beat him and took all that he had, leaving him for dead.

The priest and the Levite in this story are, perhaps, the equivalent of your pastor and the elders of this church… religious leaders and those expected to set an example in following religious law and in doing religious duties.  However, there are two significant differences that are difficult to translate into today’s circumstances.  Absolutely no one among Jesus’ hearers would have faulted these two individuals for passing by on the other side of the road.  In the first place, if the man in the ditch was dead, he was beyond help.  And, if any Jew… but particularly those in religious office… had contact with a dead person, that contact made them impure… unclean.  Restoring their purity… their cleanliness… would have required a lengthy purification process… and that would have been impractical for those whose livelihood… whose profession… and, perhaps, whose journey’s purpose may have hinged upon the need for them to perform priestly or religious duties at their journey’s end. Indeed, if they were on their way to someone’s wedding… or a funeral… they would not have been able to do what they were supposed to do if they touched this dead man.

Now, if this person lying by the side of the road was merely injured or ill, remember that in this culture, a person’s illness or injury was directly the result of their sin or God’s displeasure with them.  And, if God was angry with this person, why should the priest or the Levite stop to help them?  It would seem that God’s anger would then extend to them as well, for interfering in God’s judgment and justice.  So, you see, the priest and the Levite were actually doing the right thing by passing by on the other side… or so the crowd in Jesus’ day would have interpreted it. 

Now we get to the real twist.  We would expect the next person in the story to be a layperson… an ordinary guy… someone the people in the crowds could identify with in this story, but he isn’t.  The Samaritan who stopped to help was not even a Jew.  In fact, he was worse than “not a Jew”… he was a Samaritan.   Samaritans were hated… despised by the Jews… because they were a group that had split from the main body of Jews over religious disagreements many centuries earlier.  The Samaritans believed that the Jews did not practice the religion dictated by Moses and that, in naming Jerusalem the “Holy City,” they had abandoned the sacred holy places identified by Moses’ ordained successor, Joshua.  By Jesus’ day, even though Samaritans worshipped the same God as the Jews, they had different scriptures and different beliefs, particularly about how they practiced their faith.  There had always been tensions between the two peoples, but these tensions reached a climax a little over 100 years before Jesus was born when a Jewish high priest, John Hyrcannus, totally destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, their most holy shrine. 

Jesus’ story does not tell us where the Samaritan was traveling on this road, but we do know from other sources that it was very unusual for a Samaritan to be on this road.  Certainly, those listening to Jesus tell this story would have thought so.  This man would have been an foreigner who was hated by the inhabitants of the land he was traveling through.  He could reasonably have been concerned about his own welfare on this road, whether from robbers or from ordinary folk who just didn’t like Samaritans.  This Samaritan was probably in a hurry, wanting to complete his travels and return to his own country as quickly as possible.

So, what would be the equivalent of this story in today’s culture?    You, a tax-paying citizen of this country, are on a remote, rocky country road with very little traffic.  You have a flat tire or auto accident… and the first person who stops is a sadistic opportunist who attacks you… beats you up… robs you… steals your cell phone… and leaves you lying by the side of the road, close to death.   A Toyota Camry with a clergy sticker passes by. (She’s running late for a parishioner’s funeral in Lingleville.  Her black robe is thrown over the seat beside her and she’s looking at her watch.) She doesn’t stop.  An elder’s pickup truck (He has just learned that his mother is in the emergency room at the hospital.) also passes by without stopping.   But later… brace yourself… an illegal immigrant who speaks no English… or an Iraqi imam carrying his prayer rug under his arm… or an Asian homeless man reeking of sweat and urine… or a African American drug addict with tattoos and body piercing … or a Native American sex offender who has just been released from prison… one of these stops to help you.  Even though this “Samaritan” knows he is despised in our culture … and he knows that suspicion will probably fall on him for your injuries and possible death… he not only helps, but he goes out of his way to secure your comfort… your health… and your safety… all at his own expense… not knowing whether he will ever be repaid.    Jesus’ listeners would have all been stunned… deeply hurt… even angry at this point.  Why would a Samaritan do what two good Jews would not do? 

The answer is not found in religious law… in religious practice… in good works.  The answer is found in love.    Even though it was the lawyer who first asked the question, “Who is my neighbor?”… at the end of the story, it is Jesus who turns to him and asks, “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who was robbed?”  Jesus forces the lawyer to name the Samaritan.   “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who was robbed?”   It wasn’t one of Mr. Roger’s neighbors.  It wasn’t the wealthy privileged person rendering genteel aid to the helpless disenfranchised.  This parable is upside down, because this story is not about good works... or charity... or Christian duty… it’s about love.    It’s about loving your neighbor as yourself.  Not loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself, but about loving your neighbor in the way in which you love yourself.   What’s the difference?    The difference lies in how instinctive the action is.   If I am thirsty, I get myself something to drink.  If I am hungry, I feed myself.  If I am cold, I find a jacket or sweater to wear.  I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it… or analyzing it… or weighing the consequences of it… or trying to determine how much I will gain or lose by doing it… I just do it.    It is as natural as breathing.  The Samaritan saw the man lying in the ditch and did for him what he would have done for himself… everything he would have done for himself.  And he did not spend a lot of time pondering it… or analyzing it… or weighing the consequences of doing it… or trying to determine how much he might gain or lose by doing it… he just did it. 

            How many of us love our neighbor as we love ourselves?    For how many of us is the action we take so instinctive that we do not stop to even consider the consequences.  To believers in the early church, the Samaritan in this story was Jesus Christ… and they, the believers, were the man lying by the road.    But that view of the story is a challenging one if Jesus… the Samaritan… does not look like the person we imagine him to be.  Most of us are much more comfortable with an image of Jesus that somewhat resembles us.  And when Jesus looks like a convicted felon…which, by the way, he later became… or a foreigner… particularly someone of Middle Eastern descent… which he was… then, it is more difficult for us to enter into the story.  Jesus took the Leviticus text, which states “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”  Jesus took it one step further and said, basically, even if it isn’t “your people,” you shall love your neighbor as yourself.    The Good Samaritan that Jesus unveiled to his listeners was the enemy… hated… rejected… despised… yet he forced the lawyer… and all his listeners… to acknowledge that this was the one who proved to be a neighbor of the victim… not only by his actions… but by the fact that his actions took place in a context of possible consequences to himself… by a love that transcended race… class… status… or anything else that typically gives us pause. 

            What do your actions tell the world about you?    Does the service you render to others… particularly to those who are not family… not “your people”… come from a sense of Christian duty?  Or is it instinctive?  Does it come from who you are… or from who you think you should be?  Are you truly a reflection of Christ in everything that you do?    And is it as natural as breathing?    My guess is that we all have a long way to go to be as spontaneous in loving others… as instinctive in rendering aid to them… as the Samaritan on the road to Jericho… an enemy in enemy territory.    But each new day brings new opportunities for us to grow in this challenge… to stretch ourselves into becoming the people that God created us to be.  Remember that the first commandment is to love God with all of our heart… our mind… our soul… and our strength.  It is in doing this that the capacity to love our neighbor as ourselves grows.  The closer we get to God, the more it becomes second nature to love our neighbor as ourselves… whoever our neighbor might be.    May God bless each one of us as we struggle to become the one who loves… not from a sense of duty, but from the instinctive response of our heart toward all those whom God puts in our path.  Amen.

Luke 10:25-37; Psalm 82