"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
The scholar of the law already had an opinion about the answer to the question that he asked Jesus. There were commandments in the law that, if one carried them out, one would live. But this couldn't refer only to the brief moment of mortal life. After all, the good often died young, and there was not always a correlation between age and sanctity. Thus, those who did those things hoped that by conforming themselves to the will of God they would, in some mysterious way, live with him forever. The scholar knew this already, so much so that his was willing enough to answer his own question rather than insist on a response from Jesus. Maybe he wondered if Jesus would have deviated from or modified the answer as he understood it. Or maybe he simply found the answer he knew unsatisfactory, since it may have seemed unattainable.
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
The trouble with the answer that the scholar of the law was able to articulate was that it was not a direction toward merely best effort. It did not suggest loving God with a majority of our heart, mind, and strength but completely and exhaustively. It left no room for competitors or idols. But the honest man would have to admit that he couldn't figure out how to make himself conform to this command entirely. Some of his love would invariably go to secondary things, some of his attention would be lost to momentary distractions. He might use much of his strength in the service of God, but always with the sense that he could have done still more. And as for his duty to his neighbor, it seemed that there were always too many people with too many needs for him to ever address them all in the way that he would do for himself. And that was considering the fact that he didn't even love himself completely or consistently.
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
He wanted to justify himself, to adapt the answer to himself, rather than himself to the answer, such that the answer he desired would imply that he was already succeeding according to the required criteria. His question might have seemed clever. Surely not everyone could be one's neighbor? Didn't use of the term neighbor imply a distinction between those who were in that group and those who were not? Could such a division make the demands of the law more manageable, at least to point of making them possible to attain? But rather than answer the question in the abstract, saying something to the effect of, 'Everyone is your neighbor, and you are therefore under equal obligation to every living person', Jesus responded with a parable.
A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
We know that the man in the parable was making a bad start, leaving the holy city and heading toward Jericho. In the parable both a priest and a a Levite provided obvious examples of those who were not neighbors to the man. Then, on the other hand, there was the Samaritan, who would not typically have been seen as a neighbor to a Jew, but who proved to be one by his effort and actions. It was not hard for the scholar of the law to identify the neighbor in this scenario. He was the, "one who treated him with mercy". This answer was not "too mysterious and remote" for him. He demonstrated the fact that it was already in his mouth and in his heart. But the issue was the last part of the exhortation of Moses, enjoining the people, "you have only to carry it out". This was why Jesus said, "Go and do likewise", with emphasis on the word "do".
The problem wasn't an academic one about the possibility of consistent perfection in all times and places. It was more about the choices one faced in attempting to live daily life. Would a person attempt to show mercy, or would he simply pass by on the other side of the road? In the abstract the command of the law seemed so difficult as to be impossible. It was an example of how the letter can kill. But the Samaritan was an image of how the Spirit gives life, not in the abstract, but in a concrete response to the lives God has given us. It might not be possible to make a difference for every person on earth, or even to make every possible difference for a single person. But it is always possible to, "Go and do likewise". After all, Jesus only asks of us what he first made possible by giving us his own compassion and mercy.
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