Stories Jesus Told: When Good is Bad—The Story of the Good Samaritan
Luke 10:25-37
Jesus was such a captive communicator because he told stories, and people then, just like us now, loved stories. Jesus told stories to make a point in a more compelling way than simply stating the point. And people then, like us now, found it easy to try and identify a person to pull for in the story. They would identify the good guys and the bad guys. But sometimes, Jesus’ stories made unexpected twists and turns, and the line between the good guys and the bad guys got really blurred. Just when his listener’s thought they had the story figured out, Jesus would turn it upside down, and the listener was usually left with a life-changing decision to make.
I am a John Wayne fan. I love old westerns in general, and John Wayne in particular, because those old movies always told a great story, and it was always easy to tell between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats, and the good guys almost always prevailed over evil and injustice in the story being told in the film. I think we all like stories like that. Stories that make it easy to identify who to pull for early in the story. We find someone we can identify with and follow through the story. That’s one thing that makes a good story.
I suppose my favorite John Wayne film of all time would have to be The Sons of Katie Elder because it is one of those stories that you can’t quite figure out if John Wayne is a good guy or a bad guy. Oh, the Duke wears that same old gray felt cowboy hat that he wore in so many of his films, but the hat doesn’t give away much. In this story, the Duke plays the oldest of three sons of Katie Elder, a woman who has a reputation as a hard worker and with great love for her family. Katie has died, and the two oldest sons (who haven’t been home in many years) are reunited with a younger brother who was still living at home to settle the estate. The tone of the film gives the indication that John, the part played by the Duke, is a less than stellar character known for gun-fighting and killing—not necessarily a good guy. We are led to think, “this is a bad guy.”
Jesus told a story with a similar tone. It is the story we have come to know as the story of the “good” Samaritan. It is the story that is perhaps the most recognizable of all that Jesus told save one—the story of the Prodigal Son. Jesus told this story in the context of his encounter with a “good” man. This “good” man was a scribe, a lawyer, if you will (no, I’ll not crack any lawyer jokes here), and the scribe wanted to know what could he do to have eternal life. Isn’t that the question all humanity ultimately asks? Jesus’ answer to that question was a challenge for the good man to reflect on his own beliefs—“How do you understand what the law says?” And the good man could recite exactly what the law says—“Love God with all you are, and love your neighbor.” Jesus said, “You’ve got it right, now do it.” But the man was not content with the answer so to make sure he could justify what he was doing, asked the subsequent question, “Who is my neighbor?” That is when Jesus begins the story. I wonder how this lawyer began to identify the characters as Jesus told the story. Who did he see as the good guys and the bad guys?
Jesus said, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; he fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him, and left him for dead.” “Ah,” the lawyer was saying to himself, “what a foolish man.” He shouldn’t have been on this Jericho Road. Didn’t he know this road was known for its bands of thieves? Didn’t he know that it is safest to travel in groups along this dangerous way? If this man had been smart, he would not have gotten himself in such a tight spot as this. Unfortunate circumstances, yes, but perhaps he deserves what he got. He made his bad choices, he must deal with the consequences. For the lawyer, this man was not a good guy or a bad guy, just an unfortunate one.
Jesus continued the story, “By chance a Jewish priest came along, and seeing the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.” “Yes,” said the lawyer to himself, “here is a good guy.” He did a good thing, after all, it is his responsibility to attend to the worship of the Temple, to conduct the sacrifices of the people, and to offer them to God on the people’s behalf. For the priest to touch the bloody, possibly even dead, man would have been to render himself ceremonially unclean, and the priest would have been unable to carry out the functions in the Temple. Yes, this was a very practical thing for this good guy to do. Certainly he was justified in doing it.
“Next,” Jesus said, “a Levite, or Temple assistant, came along, and this Temple assistant looked at him lying there and decided to pass by as well.” “Another good guy,” reasons the lawyer. Why he, too, might become unclean, and be unable to assist the priest in the Temple. So he made a practical decision, but he also made a prudent one as he thought about the situation. After all, this was a dangerous place, and one ploy of the marauding band of thugs was to have one of their own fake an injury as a decoy. When an unsuspecting victim came along to offer assistance the thieves would overtake the victim. For this Temple assistant to not stop was an act of self-preservation, and it was the prudent thing to do. Certainly he was justified in doing it.
“But,” Jesus continued, “a Samaritan came along…” “Finally,” the lawyer thinks, “a bad guy shows up? He’ll probably finish the guy off. He was probably one of the robbers coming back to check his prey.” But Jesus twists the story from the expected. This Samaritan, so despised by the Jews (and this lawyer), stops, bandages and salves the wounds, picks him up and carries him to the inn around the bend, and took care of him. This is a twist indeed.
But Jesus doesn’t end the story there. Not only did the Samaritan care for the wounded man, he paid extra money to the innkeeper to continue the care, and he promised that whatever else the innkeeper invested, he would be repaid. The Samaritan went above and beyond any earthly expectation, and what’s more, there was no seeming justification for it.
Then Jesus asked the lawyer the question, “Which of these three was a neighbor to the man?” The lawyer could only answer, “The one who showed mercy.” Then Jesus issued the challenge, “Now, go and do the same.”
The lawyer was left to consider the implications Jesus made in the story, and to consider how those implications would transform the way he interpreted what the law said about gaining eternal life. We, too, must consider the same implications as we live out our faith trying our best to be the good guys, but knowing that sometimes we are confronted with the short-comings of our own goodness.
The first implication the lawyer had to consider is that the need for mercy knows no bounds. Wounded people know no race, age, nationality, or skin color. Jesus never tells us who the wounded man is, and so the man could represent anybody. But I think he more aptly represents everybody. He could represent you, he could represent me, but the fact is he represents us all, or he represents any person who has been beaten and battered by life. At some point in our lives we have been wounded, either financially, or physically. We have been wounded by our own choices and by our own mistakes, or we have been wounded by the hatred of others. We have all, at one time or another had wounds that were open for the world to see, and we have hurt when no one knew, but we have all been wounded. We know the pain of brokenness, and it doesn’t matter the source of our brokenness. What matters is that we all need mercy.
I am reminded of the events following August 29th. Nearly one million people displaced because of the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina. Literally hundreds of thousands of those people were left homeless and hopeless in the storm’s aftermath, and they were in need of mercy. Yes, some of them chose not to leave. They made a bad choice. Others were unable to leave, and had no one to help them leave. Some had no place to go, and no money to sustain them even if they had a place to go. There were as many different circumstances as there were people. After the storm, the reasons didn’t matter. What mattered was that our neighbor needed mercy.
The second implication the lawyer must consider is the sinfulness of doing nothing. I find it interesting that Jesus offers no moral indictment of the robbers. We all know they are bad. But the priest and the Levite are good people. They are people with standing in the community, with homes and families, and yet, these good people do nothing. These are the people Jesus convicts in the story—the good people. And what is worse, the good people do nothing and feel no tinge of guilt because of it. After all, they can justify their actions. How often have we failed to show mercy, failed to act when we saw a person in need, and felt we didn’t have the resources or the time? “Well,” you say, “there are so many wounded people in the world we can’t help them all.” No, we can’t. We can’t help everybody, but we can help somebody, and when everybody helps somebody, then someday, everybody will be helped.
I am reminded of the well used story of the star fish. One evening as a family is vacationing on the beach, a great storm passes through. Throughout the night, the winds blow, and the windows of the house rattle. When the man rises in the morning he looks out over the beach to discover it covered with tens of thousands of star fish that were washed ashore with the storm. In desperation, he goes to the beach and begins tossing the star fish back into the ocean. Soon, another man passes along the beach and sees the man tossing the star fish. The passer-by approaches the man and says, “Don’t you know your wasting your time. There is no way you can get all these star fish back into the ocean. It just doesn’t matter.” The man replies, “You’re probably right.” Then he reached down for another star fish, and tossing it back into the ocean said, “But it matters to that one.”
The final implication the lawyer had to consider, and we must, too, is the manner used in defining who is good. We are often so quick to ascribe a value judgment on people based on so factors such as education level, skin color, national origin, or economic status. We are too quick to group people together and stereotype them. We go through life picking out the “good” people and the “bad” people just like we do in so many movies. We know the “good” people when we see them, and we know the “bad” people when we see them. Yet, so often, just as in the movies, we live to discover there is a twist or turn in life, and we discover we had the players all wrong. It happens because our ability to define goodness is shadowed by the stain of sin. Sin clouds our judgment and causes us to call bad, good and good, bad. It happens to all of us.
Goodness, ultimately, is defined, not by what we believe, or what we say we believe, but by what we do. That was the challenge Jesus issued to the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.” It doesn’t matter what we say we believe because what we really believe is ultimately revealed in what we do. Bad is good when it does the right thing. Likewise, good is bad when it does the wrong thing, even when the wrong thing is practical or prudent.
Bad was good another time. The cross was bad, but it worked for our good, for in it we found redemption and forgiveness. To the good people, Jesus was a bad man, creating political and religious confusion, so the practical and prudent thing was for him to be put to death. It was God’s mercy working through Jesus Christ that took all that was bad and wrong from God’s point of view, and made it good and right.
The person who is good, then, is the person who is merciful, and in mercy, moves with compassion to touch another who is wounded. We never know what happened to the wounded man. Jesus never tells us. He may have ended up back on the same road a year later. But he might have become a pillar in the church. He may have shown his deep appreciation for what his rescuer had done, or he might have been an ungrateful fool. Guess what? It doesn’t matter. That’s not the business of good people. The business of good people is to help when we have the chance. If we wait to know the outcome before we help, we will never help.
Yes, Jesus was the Samaritan in the story, and it was he who delivered us along the Jericho Road that is our lives when we were wounded and broken. So we take our example of mercy from him, for we are still traveling the Jericho Road, and in our travels Jesus bids us, “Go, and do likewise.”
Oh, and by the way, John Wayne, in The Sons of Katie Elder? Turns out he was a good guy after all. He did the right thing, even though many of the townspeople thought he was bad.
