The Good Samaritan
JESUS MAFA. The Good Samaritan, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48381 [retrieved July 9, 2022]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).
Good Samaritan
Watts, George Frederick, 1817-1904. Good Samaritan, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54833 [retrieved July 9, 2022]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Good_Samaritan_(Watts).jpg.
Exploring the Text: Flipping the question
One of the draw backs of becoming very familiar with a Bible passage or a story about Jesus is that we sometimes to so familiar with it, we miss how shocking and unsettling these stories could be. This is one of those stories. The idea of the good Samaritan has become woven into our culture. The Jews of Jesus’ time could not imagine the idea of a “good” Samaritan. There was deep seated cultural and historical animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans and the idea that Jesus would make one the hero of his story, to an expert in the Jewish law no less, would have been shocking and confrontational at best.
Shock factor aside, the key to understanding the point Jesus made with this story is to understand the questions and the motivations. The lawyer asks Jesus who his neighbor is (verse 29). He knows that he needs to love his neighbor as himself (verse 27), but he is trying to make this a qualified commandment. Who really is his neighbor? Who does this commandment really apply to? Jesus doesn’t answer his question, instead he tells the story of the good Samaritan. At the end of his story, Jesus flips the question around. The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus asks, “Who was a neighbor?” The first question is one of limiting the command, who do I really need to love. The second is one of action, how can you be a neighbor to someone else.
Whether we want to admit it or not, we very often think like the lawyer. We want to put limits and qualifications on what Jesus asks us to do. Do I really need to love this kind of person? What does it mean to love them? Are they really my neighbor? Jesus’ response was to give a radical example and tell us to follow it. Jesus flipped the question, are we willing to do the same?
One of the draw backs of becoming very familiar with a Bible passage or a story about Jesus is that we sometimes to so familiar with it, we miss how shocking and unsettling these stories could be. This is one of those stories. The idea of the good Samaritan has become woven into our culture. The Jews of Jesus’ time could not imagine the idea of a “good” Samaritan. There was deep seated cultural and historical animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans and the idea that Jesus would make one the hero of his story, to an expert in the Jewish law no less, would have been shocking and confrontational at best.
Shock factor aside, the key to understanding the point Jesus made with this story is to understand the questions and the motivations. The lawyer asks Jesus who his neighbor is (verse 29). He knows that he needs to love his neighbor as himself (verse 27), but he is trying to make this a qualified commandment. Who really is his neighbor? Who does this commandment really apply to? Jesus doesn’t answer his question, instead he tells the story of the good Samaritan. At the end of his story, Jesus flips the question around. The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus asks, “Who was a neighbor?” The first question is one of limiting the command, who do I really need to love. The second is one of action, how can you be a neighbor to someone else.
Whether we want to admit it or not, we very often think like the lawyer. We want to put limits and qualifications on what Jesus asks us to do. Do I really need to love this kind of person? What does it mean to love them? Are they really my neighbor? Jesus’ response was to give a radical example and tell us to follow it. Jesus flipped the question, are we willing to do the same?