Will the Real Good Samaritan Please Stand Up?

I often watch The People’s Court during lunch, which is a show that focuses mostly on deadbeat renters and landlords, friends and family who loan money to one another, and the existence of dogs. One case featured a lady who referred to herself as a “Good Samaritan,” because after she damaged someone else’s car with her shopping cart she magnanimously let that person know what she had done when she could’ve just driven off. Of course, the reason she appeared on The People’s Court was that she refused to take legal responsibility for the damages her actions caused, citing faulty equipment and the liability of the grocery store as the real culprits. The title of Good Samaritan is now for people who are all apologies, I guess.
Every year Beloit College surveys incoming freshman to compile cultural touchstones that they do not remember. This year the results of their survey led the researchers to conclude that among these incoming freshman “the Biblical sources of terms such as “Forbidden Fruit,” “The writing on the wall,” “Good Samaritan,” and “The Promised Land” are unknown to most of them.” Without knowing the source of these terms, it’s easy to see why a lady who damaged someone else’s car can consider herself a Good Samaritan with just an apology rather than anything resembling love.
I don’t know how big of a deal it is that people by and large are becoming less familiar with famous biblical passages like the writing on the wall, but the Good Samaritan is synonymous with loving our neighbor. We do well not only to let others know what it ought to mean, but also to portray what it means through our words and actions. While we may not be as bold as the defendant was on the People’s Court, we can easily pat ourselves on our backs for our great acts of love, when all we’ve offered are trite apologies. What are Good Samaritans supposed to do, exactly? For an answer, we must return to the source of the phrase in Luke’s Gospel.
“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”“What is written in the Law?”he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii [two days’ wages for an average worker] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:25-37 NIV).
We all want to justify ourselves. We have a knack for considering our love to be far greater than it actually is. We also love to champion our causes, especially victims to which we can hold other neighbors responsible, while we are safely off the hook. Likewise, sins that are easily visible in our neighbors or sins that we do not struggle with at all can become our focus rather than sins against which we struggle daily. In response to our prideful yearning for validation and the relief of telling ourselves that we are one of the “good people,” Jesus’ story challenges us to rethink what love is and who our neighbors are.
If you’ve read much of the Gospels and Acts, then you can piece together that Jews and Samaritans did not get along. There was mutual animosity between the two groups of people, even though they were so similar and lived so close together. For us in South Dakota, the animosity between natives and non-natives is quite similar, and Jesus’ story illustrates that we cannot truly talk of love for our neighbors until we think first about neighbors that do not like us.
Arthur McGill looks at the details of the story of the Good Samaritan and shows how this seeming one-time event discloses much about the kind of love the Samaritan had. He was traveling in enemy territory and wasn’t headed home. He was a stranger in a strange land, yet he was the man with all the help, unlike the familiar priest and Levite. The Samaritan, despite being a persecuted person in a strange land, was able to love his enemies nonetheless. The Samaritan did not just drop off the injured Jew at some nearby facility. Instead, he poured costly oil and wine on the injured man’s wounds, put the man on his own donkey, and stayed with him the first night at an inn. He even left behind significant funds for all the necessary care the injured man would need. This kind of love goes beyond writing a few checks a year to charities out of our excess. The Samaritan did not give out of his excess; he gave out of what he needed for himself. He even promises to return and personally take care of the injured man’s future needs, offering to repay the injured man’s debts. Those debts become the Samaritan’s debts.
For McGill, Jesus tells this story not just for his followers to know that they are to go and love their neighbors, but also to tell them howthey can do it. Jesus is like the Good Samaritan, and we are like the injured man. This story reveals God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. For Jesus did not come like the familiar Levite or priest. Rather, he came humbly as a carpenter’s son—an itinerant preacher who attracted fishermen, tax collectors, and women. He ate and drank with sinners and spoke often about his Father’s kingdom. According to McGill, “the parable [of the Good Samaritan] warns us, not of the difficulty we face in trying to love others, but of the difficulty that all of us will have in appreciating the one who loves us and lays down his life for us, namely, our neighbor Jesus Christ. . . . On the surface he is simply not impressive enough to satisfy us. And yet he heals our deepest wounds and brings us the gift of eternal life.” His power lies in his sharing of his own life, crucified and raised, which enables his followers to go and be like him.
Who is your neighbor? How do you love her? God did not answer those questions abstractly. He answers them through Jesus Christ. Go and love likewise! And if you damage someone else’s car along the way, don’t call yourself a Good Samaritan just because you stopped to say you’re sorry.


The McGill quote is from his book, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method