But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
“And who is my neighbor?”
The scholar of the law had given the correct response to the question of what was necessary in order to inherit eternal life. But he was not content simply to have answered correctly, and indeed there was a difference between knowing an answer and living it. Further, if there was a simple answer on which he and Jesus agreed, how could he test Jesus as he had originally intended? It seems that the scholar had hoped that his own wisdom would be sufficient to demonstrate that Jesus had no claim on him, and that he could simply keep living as he had always lived. But his own wisdom, affirmed by the authority of Jesus, did not confirm his comfortable position but rather made he wish to justify himself.
A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
Departing from the holy city the man fell victim to robbers even as all of mankind fell victim to the Devil and to sin. The condition of the man mirrored that of the human race, stripped and beaten and half-dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
The law was not itself sufficient to ensure the restoration of this victim. The law encouraged the avoidance of contamination and death, and insisted on the need to preserve ritual purity. The man was not in fact entirely dead and those passing might have been able to do something to help him. But the law provided an easy out to avoid the victim, just in case. But it is not the law alone that provides an easy out or that motivates us to pass by on the opposite side when we see a person in distress. There is always a calculus for us about the risk to us and how much help we are in any event likely to be able to contribute. Our view of who qualifies as neighbor, our answer to the question of to whom will we show compassion, tends to be fairly narrow and constrained. For us it is not the legal limitations of the law but the limitations of our merely human abilities and limits that prevents us from reaching out to others.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.
Jesus was the one who came upon mankind, wounded by sin, and was moved with compassion at the sight. He had no fear of contamination even from encountering the dead, as he had already demonstrated by raising the widow's dead son (see Luke 7:11-16). Only Jesus himself was truly free to love, because he himself was not at risk and his resources were more the sufficient to the need. He was truly able to do all that was necessary for the victim. It was only by seeing this unexpected outsider love without limits that others could break free of their selfish tendencies that caused them to pass by the needy and to put limits on their definition of neighbor. By loving radically Jesus provided an interruption to our common patterns so that we could reassess even basic questions, questions we to which we thought we already knew the answer, such as 'Who is worthy of my love?'.
He approached the victim,
poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.
Then he lifted him up on his own animal,
took him to an inn, and cared for him.
Although the priest and the Levite were probably not entirely blameless for for not being a neighbor to the victim, it was truly only the Samaritan who was able to respond to the victim with everything that was necessary for his healing. He had the oil and wine needed to treat his wounds, and the bandages to cover them as they healed. He had an animal to carry him while he could not walk and money to pay the innkeeper for his care, and even credit if more still was needed. In this too he was like Jesus, on whose grace there was no limit.
‘Take care of him.
If you spend more than what I have given you,
I shall repay you on my way back.’
Jesus will indeed one day return and repay those who have assisted with the care of the victims on whom he was the first to show compassion, to whom he gave life when they were dead in sin. The Samaritan demonstrated that the question ought not be, "And who is my neighbor?", a question that presupposed limitation. The question should instead be, "To whom can I be neighbor?" We needn't go to the ends of the earth to look. For, like the scribe and the priest, like the rich man who ignored Lazarus, we probably already pass them by and need only learn to recognize them.
Am I now currying favor with human beings or God?
Or am I seeking to please people?
If I were still trying to please people,
I would not be a slave of Christ.
When we truly embrace the call to love God and neighbor in the way that Jesus, the true Good Samaritan, demonstrated we will gradually become free from the need to be people pleasers. We will even overcome the need to justify ourselves, which always comes prebuilt with all of our limitations and liabilities. We can instead rely on the true medicine of the Gospel of Christ, which itself can transform us from strangers into neighbors by the power of Jesus himself.
He has sent deliverance to his people;
he has ratified his covenant forever;
holy and awesome is his name.
His praise endures forever.
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