Good Samaritan
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. (Luke 10:30-33)
What's one of the hardest things for any man (person for that matter) to do? Experience shows it is to separate yourself from your own blinders created by a lifetime of experience, learned through the classroom or hard knocks, and see the answer right in front of you. Science calls it "serendipity." The experiment didn't yield the results the scientist expected, so he tossed the result and started over.
There is a list of these results called products, from the adhesive for "Post-it Notes" or even Bell's telephone, in which the inventor thought he'd failed miserably only to have an answer he'd never imagined sitting right there in front of him.
The priest and the Levite in a familiar story are caught up in the same educated trap (educated by life and/or instruction). The rules for bodies that are assumed dead are clear for priests and Levites. Leviticus 21:10-12 notes, “The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. 11He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. 12He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the Lord."
The priest and the Levite are doing what the law requires, passing a distance from a body they assume is dead. Yet a Samaritan, a man who is not fully Jewish (thereby being outside the bounds of the covenant and avoided by Jews), sees the man, has compassion on him, binds him up, bandages his wounds and takes him to an inn for further care.
Jesus parables always have a meaning. In this case, Christ is our "good Samaritan," taking a people who are dead in sin, binding and healing our wounds, and making us whole in the sight of God. It took a man (Samaritan) probably familiar with God's law to love our neighbors as ourselves, but not blinded by the literal law of avoiding touching or coming near a person who's believed to be deceased to care for a man who was beaten and left for dead. It took God's Son to come down and rescue us from ourselves when we are blinded by our own sin. The theme this week has been "love your neighbor as yourself," and Christ just expanded the definition of who our neighbor is exponentially.
How are we like priests and Levites today, thinking we fulfill the letter of God's law but ignoring the Spirit of God's law? How does this impact our lives daily as we pass by those who are spiritually dead, and fail to administer first aid by sharing God's Word with them through listening, sharing or giving God's healing through prayer?
Pray we are Good Samaritans. Amen.