The Good Samaritan

Somehow, for some people, "the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho" has been thought of as a Jewish man. Scriptures give us no indication, however, that the man sat upon by robbers was Jewish. Instead, he is just "a man." He could have been Roman, Greek, Egyptian, or any other ethnicity. Jesus begins right away to challenge us in this story. He completely ignores any divisions that may occur, and rather presents a human being in need of help.

Another thing I think unfortunate is that the priest and the levite who pass by the man have been impuned with cowardice. It's often explained that perhaps they were afraid that they, too, would be harmed if they helped this man. That may be, but it surprises me that it is so rarely mentioned that the priest and levite were actually following the Jewish law.

The man was beaten and left for dead. There must have been blood on the man. If they had helped the man, they would have violated the Jewish law concerning contact with blood, and would have themselves become ritually unclean. With this, they would have been ostracized from their communities and unable even to enter the temple or synagogues until they had completed the ceremonial purification acts, which as described in Jewish law, took an extended period of time.

They didn't help the man because they were obeying the law: a fact that would not have been missed by the "scholar of the law" to whom Jesus told this story.

It took someone who was already ostracized, a Samaritan, to ignore the "legal" consequences of contact with blood and to obey the more important law of God, "to love your neighbor as yourself." How often have we not helped someone who was in need because of fear thar we ourselves would be ostracized by others? I wonder if I have walked by on the other side of the road because I'm afraid of what others may think. When have we not done the right thing, because doing the right thing might mean being made fun of, losing status, or losing a friend? Or how often have we not helped others in need because we consider ourselves to be holy, and do not want to be "defiled" or made "unclean"?

We are called to love our neighbor as ourself. Jesus does not make a distinction about whom our neighbor is, any human being in need is our neighbor. Jesus does not make a distinction about what the need is, any person who is suffering. Jesus does not care about how righteous we think we are, the law of love is the supreme law. Jesus, the Son of God, who was eternally perfect and holy, emptied himself, took the form of a slave, and died on a cross in order to help us.

Now he gives us a very simple command, "Go, and do likewise."