Defying Expectations: The Good Samaritan

Text: Luke 10:25-37

Our Lord's parable of the Good Samaritan is a deep mine, and and there is a lot of meaning to be found.. The most significant image the Fathers draw from this parable is Christ as the Good Samaritan, Who self-sacrificially rescues, heals, and pays for all of us who have been beaten half-dead by demons.

Yet the simple moral sense of the parable itself is revolutionary, especially considering the sociopolitical context in which it was taught. In this post I wish just to scratch the surface of this parable.

The expert on the Jewish law who chooses to tempt Jesus asks, "Who is my neighbor?” This is a minimalist question! A pharisaical question, attempting to draw lines and boundaries to divide person from person, to limit what we are required to do, whom we are required love. Perhaps this legalist supposed our Teacher would say he must love everyone in his neighborhood, or everyone in his city, everyone in his nation, or even every Jew. 

But Christ Our King takes this man's minimalist expectations and turns then on their head.

There is an expectation that man will always choose the easiest path unless forced to do otherwise. In Our Lord's parable, the two clerics who passed by the half-dead man surely did not hate him. They were brothers of the same nation, they worshipped the same God in more or less the same way. Perhaps the priest had even offered some of this man's sacrifices upon God's altar at the Temple in Jerusalem. But when these clerics see a bloodied countryman dying and no one else is around to see them, they do what is easiest and simply decline to become involved. They take the path of least resistance and choose not to be inconvenienced or traumatized by the dying man's needs.

The person who helps that half-dead man is a Samaritan. Our Lord identifies the race of this helper without comment, but everyone in his audience knew what a Samaritan was, and what it would mean for a Samaritan to help a Jew.

The Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. Samaritans were of mixed ancestry, Jewish and Gentile, and they were thought to have kept some pagan practices which they mixed with the worship of Yahweh. They only believed in the Pentateuch, the five Books of Moses, and disregarded the rest of the Hebrew scriptures. They did not worship in the temple at Jerusalem but worshiped at their own Temple on Mount Gerizim. They did not join the Maccabean revolt, they did not resist Antiochus Epiphanes, not even when he invaded the temple of their brethren in Jerusalem and sacrificed a pig to Zeus on God's Altar. History tells us that in the brief intertestamental period of Jewish Independence the Jews even destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim. And around the year A.D. 6 Samaritan's desecrated The Temple at Jerusalem by spreading dead men's bones on the sanctuary, during Passover, no less!*

So these two people groups had a long history of conflict and hatred. Samaritans were considered heretics, at the very least. And to be sure, they held to false beliefs and incorrect practices! And yet it was a Samaritan who chose to love his neighbor, a Samaritan who chose to show God's mercy to one of his oppressors. Think of it! Perhaps a few days earlier the dying Jew would have spit on the same Samaritan given the chance, yet the Samaritan chose not only to inconvenience himself, but to sacrifice of himself: he gave up his time, soiled his hands with the Jew's blood by binding his wounds, and gave over his pack animal as well as his money as he paid the innkeeper for this stranger's care--and promised to come back with more.

It is this heretical Samaritan whom Christ holds up as an example of fulfilling the law! Having right belief, Orthodoxy, is incredibly important, and we should strive to believe truly, to understand, insofar as we can, the teachings of the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, as taught in the bosom of (and within the literal doors of) our living Orthodox Church. But Orthodoxy is meaningless without the Orthopraxy, the right action, that our Church teaches in the same breath! Let us reflect: the treacherous demons, who believe and tremble, who have existed for ages--they surely know immeasurably more about the Scriptures and writings of the Church Fathers than we do! Yet they will never truly know these teachings--not experientially, as we are called to know them--because they reject that radical love of God and neighbor that these teachings call us to.

We must, like the Samaritan, strive to see ourselves in others, as our Father Saint Gregory Palmas teaches us. We must love not only one another, but those outside the doors of our parishes, those in the world, those whom we are meant by the world and the devil to hate! This includes not only those who have personally wronged us, but political opponents, those who voted for someone we never would have voted for, geopolitical enemies, members of other nations, other classes, other creeds, other religions, the poor, the rich, the homeless, and even those who see the world very differently than we do–-especially if they are dead wrong. We must especially love those who seem to us the most unlovely.

With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Let us learn from this parable of Christ our King, and let us go and do likewise.

*Elwell, Walter A., and Barry J. Beitzel. “Samaritans.” In Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, 2:1886–88. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988.

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St. Jacob of Alaska Parish is a small Orthodox Christian community in Michigan's Central Upper Peninsula. For now, God has given us the use of an old middle school, and this hosts both our parish and our food pantry. Seeking to be good stewards, we are saving for a building of our own. Will you take part in our our mission? Even a little bit helps. Consider donating online or sending a check to:

St. Jacob of Alaska Orthodox Christian Mission

PO BOX 596

Ishpeming, MI  49849.

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