As you know, Jesus often told stories to try to illustrate what he called the Kingdom of God. What he described was a radically different way of being in the world and being in relationship with each other.
And his ideas often times left his listeners baffled because he consistently invited them to consider what the world would be like if we did things like . . .
• loved our enemies;
• did good to those who sought to harm us;
• gave away our possessions;
• Or even died for what we believe in.
And since his ideas were hard for some to comprehend, Jesus tried to help by telling stories—we call them parables.
• Sometimes the people listening would hear his stories and those stories would touch something deep inside . . . a shared human experience.
• Sometimes Jesus would tell a story and people would have no idea what he was talking about.
• Sometimes a story Jesus told would rally people to action.
• And sometimes, Jesus would tell a story that would offend everyone; just make everyone really mad .
Over the rest of the summer, we’ll hear a variety of parables Jesus told.
Let’s listen to the text . . . . READ Luke 10:25-37
Jesus is a popular, dynamic young rabbi, and he has been preaching and teaching, and healing and casting out demons . . . and everywhere He went, thousands of people followed him.
And among those following Jesus was an expert in religious Law . . . now I’m not sure what makes one an expert in religious law but I would imagine that he has a bunch of diplomas and a blog that people actually read.
And he asked Jesus to offer a rabbinical opinion about the law.
Now before we jump in to thinking that this guy is just a punk, you need to know that this was normal social interplay in this culture.
This is how the powerful, elite, professional, educated folks interacted with each other, so they could figure out who each other was in the societal pecking order.
The lawyer was certainly interested in Jesus. After all, Jesus had been generating a lot of buzz. Some of the things he was saying and doing were edgy, different; he was clearly an up and comer.
And so, he was trying to figure out who this Jesus guy was, whether he was really rising in the ranks of Jerusalem power brokers like many suspected and, if so, to make sure they knew each other
That’s the framework of our story: a lawyer and a rabbi just doing what they did. But that lawyer had a surprise in store for him, because Jesus was not your average rabbi.
Jesus consistently took generally accepted assumptions about power and influence and turned them upside down, leaving all the people who thought they understood . . . puzzled, scratching their heads in confusion.
This exercise in upending our assumptions that we just heard comes from Luke chapter 10, where Jesus tells the most famous parable of all, the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Here’s a quick review of the set up:
• A lawyer challenges Jesus, asking for exact instructions about how he might attain eternal life.
• True to form, Jesus answers the lawyer’s question with a question of his own.
• The dance continues because, of course, the lawyer knew the answer before he even asked the question (isn’t that one of the first things they teach you in trial law class?).
• So he replied: the rule, the way to attain eternal life is to follow the two most important commandments: love God and love your neighbor, of course.
Okay then. Next?
But, you know lawyers. This one follows up with another question. He wants to spar some more with Jesus, to test him and see if he’s really got what it takes to make it in upwardly mobile Jerusalem society: “And who exactly is my neighbor?”
In answer, Jesus tells a story.
There was a man traveling from down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.
Along the road came a priest, who was traveling the same way. When he saw the hurt man lying on the side of the road he crossed over to the other side and continued on his way. So likewise a Levite came to the same place, saw the man, and passed by on the other side.
Then came a Samaritan along the road. The Samaritan stopped and helped the wounded man; bandaged him and took him to safety; provided for him until he was fully healed.
And Jesus concludes the story with his own question, a different one: “Which of these three was being a neighbor to the man who was hurt?”
The lawyer had just asked for a straight answer, you know a little bit of clarification about his previous question, perhaps a list. You know he had his pencil and legal pad ready, for a list that he could check off one by one and meet the legal requirements for heaven.
But Jesus’ story threw a wrench into the whole business.
Let’s look again, because we always have to be careful with very familiar passages of scripture, careful that we don’t mistake familiarity for understanding.
This is how I’ve always heard it:
There was a man traveling from down Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.
Got it.
Along comes a priest, who passes by, a Levite who passes by, and a Samaritan who stops.
Got it.
As I learned from my Sunday School felt board lessons on this story . . .
• The priest was way too powerful and important to stop and so he hurried on because he didn’t want to be bothered.
• The Levite (who assisted the priest in the temple) did the same, because he was also busy and in a hurry, so he went on.
• Then a nice Samaritan came by and did what the other two should have done but they were too snobby and self-important to do.
• And so, you should always help people.
Right?
Well, that may be the way it was taught but it wasn’t the way the lawyer and all the people listening heard it. They heard about the man robbed and beaten and they knew: that stretch of road is dangerous; happens all the time.
Then the priest comes by, and a Levite comes by but neither of them stop.
The people listening would have thought—well, of course they wouldn’t stop. I mean, the man needed help, but those two were unable to help him.
They weren’t necessarily shady, arrogant figures; they were bound by the laws of the temple to stay away from anything that could make them unclean; there was an involved process they would have had to undertake to make them eligible to serve in the temple again, and as they were probably headed to preside over sacrifices and serve the people there, they couldn’t risk breaking the law to stop and help.
They probably passed by feeling sorry for the man, sad that they couldn’t help, and maybe even guilty for not stopping. But they had to follow the law.
Then came the Samaritan.
Now you need to understand that Jews and Samaritans didn’t like each other . . . at all.
In fact, they had actually hated each other for over a thousand years. There was long-held ethnic hostility and political and religious rivalry between Jews and Samaritans.
And the Jews considered the Samaritans half breeds and the religious leaders had condemned them unclean because they had intermingled with the Pagans.
So when Jesus said “a Samaritan” the lawyer and the crowd knew immediately that, if the priest and the Levite were at the upper end of the Jewish power structure, the Samaritan barely made the cut at the bottom, if at all.
But as the story continues, it’s, shockingly, the Samaritan who stops and helps.
And at the end of the story, Jesus asks that pointed question back to the lawyer: which of these three was BEING a neighbor to the man in need?
Not: who was following the law?
But: who was being a neighbor?
The lawyer had asked “who is my neighbor?”
The lawyer wanted a clear answer to his question so he could get out there and make sure he was checking all the boxes he needed to check to insure eternal life.
And we want that, too.
The way we’ve typically walked away from this story is with a list, just like the lawyer wanted, right?
Make sure you help out the homeless guy on the street corner, the person with the flat tire, or send money to the starving children around the world . . . a list, and a reminder to always help people who are in need, amen.
And this of course is a very nice way to interpret this parable, one that I am sure Jesus would have taught had he been the kind of teacher whose main objective was to leave us with a nice morality tale that makes us feel guilty when the guy at the stop light knocks on the car door window asking for money and we pretend like we don’t see him while praying that God makes the light to change quickly.
But I’m just not sure that giving the lawyer—or us—a list of rules was what Jesus intended.
Remember, Jesus wouldn’t answer the question the lawyer had asked: who is my neighbor?
Jesus’ story in answer challenged: who in this story is being a neighbor?
For the lawyer standing there that day having a scholarly conversation with a young, up and coming rabbi, the theoretical questions he posed were about religion and rules.
But Jesus told a story about powerful and holy people following the rules, and a societal outcast who probably broke some rules of cleanliness and social interaction to actually do the right thing.
When Jesus told this story, he changed the paradigm, he rocked the foundations of that powerful lawyer in search of his next step up the social ladder and he does that to us, too.
You see . . .
• True power comes from a faith that animates our lives and transforms our hearts.
• True religion is about sacrificial love that knows outward trappings of power mean very little, and strives instead for inner transformation that results in radical actions of love that rock convention, that might even challenge the law, and that hold the potential to change the world.