3 The Good Samaritan, Part 2
Note: this talk is the continuation of ‘1 The Good Samaritan, Part 1’, which is also available on Sermon Central.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the expert in the law in the story had two questions. His first question was, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ It’s a very important question!
Jesus’ answer, and Luke’s commentary showed us that:
Doing is essential for our salvation. Jesus told the man, ‘Do this and you will live.’
Doing means keeping God’s law. Jesus asked the man, ‘What is written in the Law?’
But we can’t be justified by doing! Luke commented on the man’s question, ‘But he wanted to justify himself’.
The expert-in-the-law’s first question was the subject of my first talk.
We now come to the expert-in-the-law’s second question. He asked, ‘And who is my neighbour?’
Jesus told a parable in answer. It shows that we must be careful not to exclude people from those we consider as neighbour. But before we get onto that, let us also take care that we don’t try to consider everyone as neighbour! It can end up having an unwanted effect!
In normal English, ‘neighbour’ generally means someone who lives near us. It doesn’t mean everyone in the world!
In the Bible, ‘neighbour’ has a similar meaning, but it is a little bit broader. It includes people we have a connection with, for example, because we have lent money to them or do business with them. We might not class people like this as neighbours, but the Bible probably would. But whether we take modern usage of the word, or the Bible’s usage, ‘neighbour’ does not mean the whole world!
It’s true, of course, that God loves the whole world. Therefore, if we’re God’s children we should love the whole world too. It’s also true that because we’re all nice people we want to be inclusive. So, we might wish to think of everyone in the world as our neighbour.
But if we take ‘neighbour’ to mean everyone in the world it doesn’t fit with the meaning of the word. ‘Neighbour’ doesn’t mean the whole world. And if we try to regard everyone in the world as a neighbour it’s likely to create a problem.
The problem is that we give attention to people far away who we have very little connection with and neglect people close to us who we do have a connection with. Someone even coined a term for this: ‘the Jellyby fallacy’. It’s the mistake of giving no special consideration to one’s kin. The name came from a character in a Dickens novel, ‘Bleak House’. One of the characters in the novel, Mrs Jellyby, is occupied with schemes to educate the natives of Borrioboola-Ghia, on the left bank of the Niger. Good so far. But in the process, she neglects her own children. Not so good.
This command, to love our neighbours, places a special obligation on us to love our neighbours. Of course, we may love people who are not our neighbours. But we cannot love them at the expense of loving our neighbours: people who live near us or we have a connection to.
However, that isn’t Jesus’ point in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. His emphasis is that we must not exclude people from those we consider ‘neighbours’.
The priest and the Levite passed by the injured man. Since Jesus is answering the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ the presumption is that they didn’t help him because they didn’t see him as a neighbour.
Why might that be? We don’t know. But we can imagine at least three reasons.
One reason why a person might not see someone as a neighbour is that you don’t know him or her. Do you have to know someone in order to consider him a neighbour?
The priest, the Levite and the Samaritan didn’t know the injured man, and yet Jesus clearly expected them to stop and help him. So, you can’t say, ‘I don’t know him; therefore, I have no responsibility towards him.’
That’s the main point. But we may wonder, what placed a responsibility on the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan? What put them in the role of neighbour to the injured man? Simply the fact that they were in the same place at the same time. Let me give you an example. Last summer our daughter Sophie went to Cairo. While she was there, she sent me the following message:
'Hello Dad, something quite serious came up last night. I don't think she'd mind me telling you because you have no clue who she is. I was talking to one person who surprisingly trusts me a lot from the hostel and I found out she had cut herself yesterday and there was some stuff going on back at home. So I listened and stayed talking until I made sure that she won't do it again today because I will be at work. Anyways I didn't realize but I spent 4 hours with her and it was 1am at the end and too late to call you.'
Sophie had only recently met this girl. But circumstances had thrown them together and Sophie rightly felt that she had a responsibility to help. She was in the role of neighbour.
A second reason why a person might not see someone as a neighbour is that he is of a different race, religion, or status. Jesus makes it clear that this isn't allowed by including the Samaritan in the story. He was of a different race and religion and possibly status to the injured man. If someone in your street is Indian or Chinese or an illegal immigrant or the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, he or she is still your neighbour.
A third reason why a person might not see someone as a neighbour is that he needs a particular kind of love; a kind of love that we are not very willing to offer.
Suppose we imagine Jesus’ parable unfolding a different way. The man in Jesus’ story is not attacked by robbers. He’s a Jew, and he comes to the priest and Levite for counselling and spiritual advice. They don’t know him, but they’re delighted. Spiritual advice is right up their ally! They warm to him. In this context they see him as a neighbour.
If that alternative version in any way reflects reality, then a possible reason why the priest and Levite don’t help the injured man is because the kind of help he needs – binding of wounds – was outside their comfort zone. The kind of love he needed was not a kind of love they wanted to offer. Therefore, they did not see him as a neighbour.
I speculated why the priest and Levite didn’t consider the injured man a neighbour. I don't know the real reason, but I imagined two possible reasons. They might have said to themselves: ‘We don’t know him’. Or ‘We don’t do blood and messy things’. I also imagined one reason why the Samaritan might not have considered the injured man a neighbour. He might have said to himself: ‘He’s not my race or religion’. But that didn’t stop him from helping.
Jesus’ parable is very applicable today. It concerns a priest and a Levite, so it’s aimed squarely at religious people, people like most of us. We are in danger of acting like the priest and the Levite. Some Christians are definitely at risk in this area.
Let’s take Christian ‘parachurch’ organizations as an example. Over about the past 100 years there has been a huge growth in these organization. They almost always specialize in some form of ministry. When they specialize, they make a decision to do certain things and not do other things. They might do apologetics or evangelism or discipleship for example, but not do compassionate ministry. If you ask them to help with some compassionate ministry, some will say no. It would be a distraction. It isn’t their focus.
It’s very similar to the priest and the Levite.
This isn’t easy. People and organizations need to have a focus. There are benefits in specialization. But we cannot turn away from a person in real need. We can’t say, ‘we don’t do that’. We can’t put what we prefer before what the other person needs.
Let’s conclude.
The question Jesus was asked was, ‘Who is my neighbour?’
We need to avoid making the concept of neighbour too big. People who live near us, or who we come into contact with, are neighbours. But everyone in the world is not our neighbour. God is omnipresent and he can love everyone. We can’t.
However, the main focus of Jesus’ parable is to avoid making the concept of neighbour too small. We cannot restrict our concept of neighbour because we don’t know a person, or he or she is different, or because he or she has needs I don’t feel comfortable helping with.
At the beginning of this story a lawyer asks Jesus, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan shows what he has to do. He has to show his faith by his obedience to God’s law. And so must we.
