THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Text : Luke 10:25-37
There is the story of a fellow on his way to a job interview. He had been out of work for many months. On his way to what seemed like a promising interview, he encounters a woman on the side of the road who has just had a flat tire. DILEMMA: If he stops to help out, he is going to be late to his interview. As a Christian, he feels compelled to stop to help so he stops and helps the woman change her tire. Stopping might mean that her would be late. In the meantime, he goes on to the interview. Little did he know that he had helped out the very person who was interviewing him for his job. This fact was not evident until it came time for him to go to the office of the personnel director. (Bruce Larson. The Presence. New York: Harper and Row, 1988, p. 42).
We usually call someone who is a stranger that helps us out a Good Samaritan after the example in the story that Jesus told. Indirectly, Jesus was making the point that our worship carries over into our works. Our love and adoration for God is something that we are supposed to exemplify in our worship.
THE QUESTIONS
The expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Two possible motives: One way to look at the question is to suspect that the expert in the law was trying to trick Jesus and make him look foolish because he desired to “test” him. Another way to look at this question that was posed to Jesus is to see it as a sincere quest for an answer. It is more than likely that the so called test was the real motive because headdresses Jesus respectfully as he calls Him “Teacher”.
Jesus answers his question with a question. “Strict orthodox Jews wore round their wrists little leather boxes called “phylacteries” which contained certain passages of scripture”. (William Barclay. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Luke. Revised Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, p. 140). So when Jesus was asking him how he read it he was asking him to refer to the text in his phylactery to answer his own question.
The lawyer’s answer to Jesus’ question was a good one: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as you love yourself”.
Jesus commended him on his answer. Jesus then told him if he was to put those things into practice he would live. In other words, there is more to life than just having the right answer by way of words because actions are required to match the answer that is described in words.
JUSTIFICATION
Since he was a scribe or expert in the law, he had only one way of looking at things which was from the legal standpoint. The Jews had narrowed the understanding of the term neighbor to mean fellow Jews. Jews had nothing to do with Gentiles and vice versa. It was a cultural thing. To the Hebrews or Jews a Gentile was considered to be unclean. It is also true that Gentiles such as the Romans thought of the Jews as be filthy; they considered Judaism as a barbarous superstition; they spoke of the Jews as being hateful of mankind (Barclay, p. 85).
He sought to justify himself by asking “Who is my neighbor?” His attitude was “what is mine is mine” I’ll keep it. In other words, he did not want to have to change his way of living. He seeking for a way to maintain his current code of ethics which to love only those just like himself. Jesus gave him a story---a parable by which he explained who our neighbor is.
Bruce Larson makes the comment that if you’re in trouble, you don’t stop to wonder if you are worth being helped. When you’re in line for a movie or a ball game, you would not stop to think about giving your place to someone else. No, you get in line early so that you feel entitled to be there. So when Jesus is addressing this expert in the law, He is shattering his world view. No more rules and regulations apply because we are required by God to love others as He loves us. (Lloyd J. Ogilvie. General Ed. The Communicator’s Commentary: Luke. Bruce Larson. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1983, p. 184).
Sometimes we are like the scribe in that we might try to find ourselves justifying ourselves for not wanting to do as Jesus would do. We might call that selective good will. It is when our love comes with strings attached that it ceases to be truly loving because it has become in some way legalistic. That kind of love is based on conditions wherein it becomes “I love you if …”.
THE ANSWER IN A PARABLE
To answer his question, about “who is his neighbor” Jesus tells him a story. A traveler is attacked by bandits, who take his material belongings and even his clothes. He is thrown in a ditch a left to die. Here comes three others who could help. The first, a priest passes by on the other side for fear that he might defile himself and not be able to participate in worship. Or, perhaps he was worried that the bandits were in hiding while waiting for another victim. The second, a Levite even goes over to the other side and gets close enough to minister to him but instead walks back where he came from and passes by on the other side. Third, here comes the Good Samaritan, who goes over to the man and takes pity on him, bandages his wounds, puts him up in a hotel and pays the fee.
The reason that the Samaritan’s response seems unlikely is because Jews and Samaritans usually had nothing to do with one another. In fact, the Samaritans were considered to be half-breeds among the Jews (see II Kings 17:29) (1) because the “… Jews who remained after the fall of Israel in Palestine intermarried with the heathen and were called Samaritans” (Jerry Falwell. Executive Ed. The Complete Bible Commentary. Edward G. Dobson. “The Gospel Of John.” Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999, p. 1303). (2) Not only were the Jews considered half-breeds, but they also opposed the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. (3) Therefore, they built their own place of worship on Mount Gerizim (Ezra 4:2-5; Nehemiah 2:19). “Ceremonially unclean, socially outcast, and religiously a heretic, the Samaritan is the very opposite of the lawyer as well is the priest and the Levite”. (Fred B. Craddock. Interpetation: Luke. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990, p. 150).
The point of the story that Jesus told was (and is) to illustrate who our neighbor is. Our neighbor is anyone in our midst that might be in need. Consider these …
VIGNETTES: (1) Kitty Genovese is set upon by a maniac as she returns home from work at 3 A.M. Thirty-eight of her neighbors in Kew Gardens come to their windows when she cries out in terror; none come to her assistance even though her stalker takes over half an hour to murder her. No one even so much as calls the police. She dies.
(2) Andrew Mormille is stabbed in the stomach as he rides the A train home to Manhattan. Eleven other riders watch the 17-year-old boy as he bleeds to death; none come to his assistance even though his attackers have left the car. He dies.
(3) An 18-year-old switchboard operator, alone in her office in the Bronx, is raped and beaten. Escaping momentarily, she runs naked and bleeding to the street, screaming for help. A crowd of 40 passersby gathers and watches in broad daylight, the rapist tries to drag her back upstairs; no one interferes. Finally, two policemen happen by and arrest her assailant. (Barry Kantowitz, Henry L. Roediger III, David G. Elmes. Experimental Psychology: Understanding Psychological Research. St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1988, p. 439).
It was incidents like that that made some experimental psychologists want to do some research by way of experiment. HYPOTHESIS: “The more people who observe a crisis and who are potential helpers, the less likely anyone one bystander is to help the victim. In one laboratory experiment (Darley and Latane, 1968), subjects were le d to believe that were participating (via an intercom system) in a discussion on personal problems in college life, with either one, two, or five other students. The experimenter left the scene after the subjects had been instructions. The discussion began with the students introducing themselves, but suddenly one of the students started to act, in a very convincing way, as though he were undergoing an epileptic seizure. (Actually one subject participated at a time; the other voices heard were recorded.) The interest was in seeing how the subjects would behave when they thought there were zero, one, or four other bystanders” (Barry Kantowitz, Henry L. Roediger III, David G. Elmes. Experimental Psychology: Understanding Psychological Research. St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1988, pp. 439-440). RESULTS: When one was present the percentage of trying to help a stranger was 85% at 52 seconds lapsing. When two were present the willingness to help a stranger decreased by 23% to 62% with 93 seconds lapsing before response. When five were present, the willingness of the other four to help a stranger dropped another 31%.
The Bystander experiment exhibits a behavior that psychologist refer to as diffusion of responsibility
There is the story of a man who had begun to build a home in the mountains of Vermont where it happens to be difficult to get water. The owner asked a man what to do for water. His advice upon determining the best spot was to dig fourteen feet straight down. He was told that he would need to pump out the water every day. Due to lack of patience, after the second day there was no water. He gave up and spent $3,000. on an artesian well. Later on he ran into the man who gave him the advice. He told him about how he had given up. The native had told him to pump the water out every day. He asked him if that advice had been followed. “No,” was the answer. The native said, “You fool! An underground river is made up of thousands of little capillaries running underground. As you pump the water you enlarge those capillaries and more water comes. Once you stop, the water backs up, the capillaries close and the river is formed somewhere else.” Our life in Jesus is like that. As we give our time, our love, our money, the well is always filled. When we begin to believe “What’s mine is mine” somehow our lives dry up and we’ve lost the key to everything. (Bruce Larson. Communicator’s Commentary: Luke. pp. 184-185). “The thief said, “What’s yours is mine, I’ll take it.” The priest and the Levite reasoned, “What’s mine is mine, I’ll keep it.” But the Samaritan said, “What’s mine is yours, I’ll share it.” (James A. Borland. The Complete Bible Commentary: Luke. pp. 1278-1279).
Jesus gave him the final answer. “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). Jesus said this in response to his answering which one showed mercy.
