Parable of the Good Samaritan - Luke 10: 25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Commentary

Today's story is pretty clear. I doubt anyone needs me to explain it. So I think the best way for me to expand on it is to move it to Reno, 2022.

It was Street Vibrations weekend in Reno and the city was filled with bikers of every sort, from misguided business men on a lark, to griseled Hells Angels looking for a rumble. It was about dinner time when a badly inebriated biker staggered out of the El Dorado lobby, with a bottle in one hand and a wad of bills in his other. “I just hit the jackpot”, he shouted. “Join me next door at the Silver Legacy. The drinks are on me.”

Well, before a crowd could even join him, a local dude in a hoodie, dashed out of the doorway, wrestled away the bottle, hit the drunk on the head with it and disappeared with the cash. The poor drunk biker was left on the pavement in front of the ElDorado, sprawled on the ground with blood running out of a gash on his forehead.

Well the crowds going in and out of the ElDorado were a pretty good mix of Reno on a weekend. Tourists, and ranchers. Filthy rich and dirt poor. They all took one look at the inebriated biker on the ground and took a long detour around him. One rich lady from Los Angeles, was heard to say, “Somebody find the doorman!” But nobody did.

As luck would have it, a concert at Trinity cathedral had just let out, and a crowd of Reno music fans was coming up the street to get some diner at the Roxy. And while they were on foot, and had to go out of there way to avoid the drunk, that is exactly what they did.

About the same time, a sweet elderly lady from Park Place came by. She was riding in her sons car, also going to the El Dorado for a birthday diner at La Strada. “Robert”, she cried, “you have got to stop the car this instant. We need to help that poor man on the sidewalk”. “Mom”, Robert replied, “he's clearly a drunk and we will be late for our reservation. The police will show up in a bit and take care of it”. Much heated conversation ensued, after which the sweet elderly lady from Park Place got out of the car, found the doorman, took him and a luggage cart to the wounded biker on the sidewalk, and then had the doorman first load the inebriated man onto the cart, then wheel him to the front desk and then finally to a room that she had gotten for him. Only after the biker was safely in his room, did the sweet elderly lady from Park Place join her son Robert, who had in the meantime parked the car, at the La Strada for dinner.

To me, this story is much more in your face than the one Jesus recounts in the gospel. But I do not think I am exaggerating. Jews and Samaritans scorned and reviled each other. The idea of a Samaritan caring for a Jew is no less astonishing than the idea of a sweet elderly lady caring for a drunken biker.

I think the word neighbor trips us up here. I think that Jesus used the word because he intended to redefine it. But for us, we hear neighbor and not having the Jew/Samaritan history in our blood, we end up just saying, OK, so a neighbor includes someone you might run into in your travels. I think my story is a correct interpretation of what Jesus was after. And I think that in order to accept this story, we have to look at the entire spectrum of neighbor, stranger, and other.

This story excepted, I think the common interpretation of neighbor is someone you find in your neighborhood. Neighborhood is another concept that is falling out of relevance in our culture, but to the extent that we either still have one or can remember what that was, I believe a neighborhood was its own subculture. A neighborhood was populated by people who more or less had the same kind of background, religion, schooling, and social level. Hence, neighbors were historically people who you knew enough about to have a personal opinion of. By contrast, the stranger was someone you did not know. At the time of Christ there already was a long standing cultural requirement that one cared for the stranger.

In our own world, you know when you are a stranger when you walk into a restaurant and everyone looks at you but nobody speaks to you. It's not actually hostile, since you can succeed in breaking the ice with some effort, but until you do, you are not trusted.

I can not speak for Palestine at the time of Jesus, but I know in our own cultural there is alsp definitely a category beyond stranger. I think it is most often just referred to as Other. The stranger you do not trust because you do not know. The other you bar from your society because of what you think you know about his. Our society is quick to consign a group to the category of other. At various times and in various places, Negros have been others. At other times and places, Muslims have been others. I think for most law abiding citizens, Hells Angels are others. We are unlikely to care for them because we are too busy trying not to even see them. I think that the Jew in Jesus' story was probably, to the Samaritan, an other. Yet this is the kind of chasm that Jesus is suggesting we be willing to bridge when we decide who is or is not a neighbor.

I believe that by Jesus' definition, the drunk Hells Angel on the pavement in front of the El Dorado, qualifies as a neighbor. For me that brings up VERY big reservations. Jesus asks me to overcome those reservations, as did the sweet elderly lady from Park Place in my story.

May we be given the love and strength to do so.

Amen