My opinion is that if you only read The Parable of the Prodigal Son and The Parable of the Good Samaritan, you would pretty much know everything you need to know about the nature of God and what God intends for you ( OK, let’s also throw in the Sermon on the Mount). The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) tells you everything you need to know about the nature of God, that God is a God of unlimited grace, a God of unconditional love and forgiveness. We won’t be discussing that parable today but have done so in the past. Today we are discussing The Parable of the Good Samaritan which instructs us on who we should be in the world, a loving, inclusive, forgiving, compassionate, and generous neighbor to all. Let’s look at this parable. Let’s look at the question asked, “Who is my neighbor?” With this question, Jesus is trying to get us to look at a progressively larger circle of neighbors, yet when asked this question, inevitably we start narrowing the circle. We ask, “Who really counts? Who deserves my compassion? Who is close enough to me that I am responsible for them?”

In Jesus’ day one’s neighbor would be their family first, then the people living adjacent, and then perhaps others in the village, and at most other Jews in Judea, the province in which he lived. So, Jesus introducing the Samaritan as the hero and role model for a neighbor is amazing and somewhat appalling to his audience. To really appreciate how much Jesus flips the script in this parable, you must appreciate how much the Jews hated the Samaritans. The Assyrian Empire conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel around 732 BC, exiled the political and economic elites, and repopulated the region with foreigners. Over generations, the remaining Israelites intermarried with the foreign settlers and adopted a blended theology. This distinct ethnoreligious group preserved their own version of the Torah and built a temple on Mount Gerizim, causing a severe schism with the Judeans of Jerusalem. In the ensuing centuries, there was much violence between the two groups. By the Roman period, including the time that Jesus lived, the rift was absolute. The Jews of Judea thought the Samaritans had abandoned and rejected their true faith and therefore treated them as social and ritual outcasts, avoiding traveling through their territory entirely. This should give you some kind of appreciation of how challenging it would be for Jesus’ Jewish audience to see a Samaritan “as neighbor.” By choosing the Samaritan as the righteous one in this story, Jesus is teaching his audience, and us, about God’s radical inclusivity. He is not pretending that differences do not exist. But instead of asking, “Do they belong?” he teaches us to ask, “How can I show love?” It is a matter of choosing connection over distance, building bridges instead of walls. Who in our lives do we most easily distinguish from “us”? Are there groups – ethnic, religious, economic, political – toward whom we feel indifferent, fear, or judgement? Try to find such a person this week and commit to just one act of neighborly love.

The first thing that is special about the Samaritan is that he truly sees the beaten man. You might say that the priest and the Levite also saw him, but only the Samaritan allowed what he saw to change him. The priest and Levite saw a man, who if dead and touched would make them ritually impure. They might even have to haul their butts back to Jerusalem for a purification process. The Samaritan, however, saw the divine image of God in this person. In doing so, he saw that this person was connected to him. We are then challenged. How often do we get stuck seeing someone’s background before their story, seeing their differences instead of the inherent dignity that God gives to all. What categories do you put people into that decreases their worth and value. The next time you are inclined to do that, see instead the divine image in them and reach out with compassion and make a connection.

Beyond seeing a connection with the beaten Jewish man as an equally beloved child of God, the Samaritan also embraces forgiveness and peace. As a Samaritan, this man would probably have had horrid and demeaning interactions with Jews in his past, yet he approaches this situation with forgiveness for any such prior interactions and approaches him with peace when many of us would seek vengeance and retaliation from previous wrongs.

After seeing the person, the Samaritan chooses to cross the road. He chooses to cross any barriers, cross any assumptions, cross over fears that could have kept him separate. He put God’s love into action and that is what is required. It is not a matter of feeling sorry for someone. That is sympathy. It is not a matter of feeling what other people feel. That is empathy. Compassion requires action, entering the darkness another is experiencing and walking with that person until they merge into the light once again. How many of us consider ourselves righteous, literally right with God, because we believe the right things and how many of us aspire to be righteous by doing the right thing. Jesus and the prophets preceding him clearly feel it is all about the later. We see this in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46). Being God’s people in the world is clearly all about expressing God’s love through acts of compassion. Faith is defined as love expressed in the world through compassion, not belief in specific theological doctrines. The kingdom of God is not built by making everyone identical. It is built by recognizing the image of God in every person.

Finally, this story shows that there is a cost to compassion. The Samaritan uses his own resources to heal the man, including any costs incurred with the innkeeper. He promises to return and see to any additional costs, teaching us that compassion requires commitment. It is often more than a “one and done” proposition. Another aspect of the cost here is that the Samaritan was placing himself in danger. If you are a Samaritan bringing a horribly beaten man draped across your donkey into the next village, there is a very real possibility that the Jews of that village might assume that it was you who inflicted these wounds which could result in the men of that village assaulting you. But I would echo something that I have said before and that is fear, anxiety and uncertainty should not stop you from engaging in an act of compassion. “Do not be afraid” as we see more than 150 times in the Bible. When you are doing God’s work in the world, God is with you to give you the strength and peace needed for the task at hand.  

In conclusion, let us widen our circle of who we call “neighbor” like the Samaritan. Let us see Jesus in the eyes of all we see and when there is a need, let us bring the love of God into the world through compassionate action. This is who God intended you to be. In the words of Thomas Merton and Richard Rohr, this is your “true self.” We all have a piece of the divine withing us. It may be as small as a grain of sand, sitting in a stagnant puddle, at the bottom of our soul, but it is there, waiting to be tapped into. We need only to look back at the parable of the mustard seed or yeast to be reminded by Jesus that tapping into even the tiniest amount of divine love can have an incredible transformational impact in us and the world. I have often said that God’s plan for the world, as taught and modeled by Jesus, is to make this world a manifestation of love, compassion, generosity, forgiveness, peace, and inclusivity. We see all of this clearly in the story of The Good Samaritan. Let us aspire to truly see where compassion is needed in the world and commit ourselves to do as he would.

Amen