Fifteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year C: The Good Samaritan On "Uh-Oh” Street

Dan Dailey, writing in the New York Daily News, tells about overhearing a woman in New York discussing her neighborhood. New Yorkers often divide Manhattan based on the location of Houston Street.

If you live south of Houston Street, you live in SoHo; if you live north of Houston Street, you live in NoHo. But this woman lived in a troublesome neighborhood somewhere in between that she called “Uh-Oh.”

Jesus’ listeners would have understood that the road between Jerusalem and Jericho was an “Uh-Oh” kind of neighborhood. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho stretches about 18 miles through desert terrain—hot, dry, rocky and rough.

In Jesus’ day, it was common for thieves to hide among the rocks along this road and attack travelers passing through. 1

This man was traveling alone and not in a caravan, which is a risky thing to do as we see. He must have worn linen and not the more common wool, which is why the robbers also took most of clothes.

This story began when an expert in the law initially asked a question wanting to test Jesus.

But in the story about the Good Samaritan, Jesus is testing him—and us.

Consider that the man beaten and robbed was going from Jerusalem to Jericho. So were the priest and Levite, which implies that all of them had just left from worshipping in the temple.

If they were going towards Jerusalem, they could have claimed that their duties to God regarding ceremonial uncleanness, so they give the man, either dead or alive, a wide berth to avoid potential contamination.

Who helped him? a Samaritan, who admittedly had wrong views about where to worship God and how, so they were despised and marginalized by the Jews, but are rehabilitated in the Gospels more than on one occasion, like the Samarian in this story, who was living a moral life.

There is a story about a modern-day Good Samaritan. Meet the Train Track Hero Who Saved a Stranger from Electrocution.

In June 2022 when Anthony Perry stepped off the train at Chicago’s 69th Street station, the 20-year-old, who worked nights in a grocery store, was on his way to see his grandfather so they could go look at a car Perry was thinking about buying. He was not thinking about saving anyone’s life, but by the end of the night, strangers would be calling him a train track hero.

Moments after Perry stepped onto the train platform, two men began throwing punches. Then the unthinkable happened: The pair tumbled over the edge and onto the tracks. One man ended up on his back, fending off blows. Suddenly, he started bucking and convulsing. The aggressor straddling him leaped backward, bounded back up onto the platform and disappeared.

It soon became clear what had caused the convulsions. The man had fallen atop the third rail, the conduit for the 600 volts of electricity that power Chicago’s L trains. As Perry and other horrified onlookers watched, he twitched grotesquely as the current surged through his body, his head bouncing up and down off the tracks.

Perry couldn’t just stand there and watch. He instantly sprang into action. He sat at the edge of the platform and eased himself down. Assuming that every rail between him and the man was electrified, Perry took a few quick bounds, high-kneeing it as he’d done in high school football, until he was standing over the victim.

When Perry reached the guy, he looked dead, his body still thrashing rhythmically as the electricity pulsed, his head banging against a steel rail. Perry wondered how he was going to escape the situation he’d just put himself into: straddling the deadly rail, about to lay hands on a body coursing with electricity. Thankfully, the train he’d just gotten off was idling. But had the conductor seen him? Would it start up again?

Putting his trust in God, Perry reached down and grasped the victim’s wrist. Instantly, an electric shock shot through his body. Perry flinched and jumped back. He reached down a second time and was shocked again. But the third time, he seized the man’s wrist and forearm and, braving the shock, yanked. The guy’s body slid briefly along the third rail, coming to rest on the gravel on the outer edge of the tracks, beside a concrete barricade.

To Perry’s relief, the man was breathing—but raggedly. Something wasn’t right.

Amid the chaos, a woman wailed, “Help him! Please, someone!”

Perry wasn’t a doctor. He wasn’t a nurse. And he had no idea how to help the seriously injured man in front of it. Luckily, someone else did. A woman on the platform wearing scrubs yelled, “Give him chest compressions!”

Although Perry was no expert, for a few moments, he worked on the man’s heart until the victim began convulsing. Once again, Perry grabbed him, keeping him from flailing back onto the third rail or smashing his head into the concrete.