The story called “The Good Samaritan” is such an iconic story that one doesn’t have to be a church goer to know it. You don’t have to be a Christian to have heard it or understand something about it. Hospitals, emergency services, counseling services, rules of law about limits of liability, award programs, all get called Good Samaritan. When my oldest daughter Sarah was in highschool, she was honored at a year end awards ceremony for her empathic helpfulness by receiving a “Good Samaritan Award” which came with a Bible of all things (poor kid) – and it’s a really bad edition too, and there sum of money that she didn’t receive but that she could designate to a worthy cause of her choosing, while honorees in other categories cash prizes and gift certificates. Sarah got what felt like the booby prize!

This parable of the Good Samaritan, found only in Luke, might be the most famous parable of them all. And with its fame comes enormous weight of Protestant Moral Theology, Sunday School lessons, and a hefty dose of Christian anti-Jewish bias. The preaching challenge for me seems formidable because of what we all think we already know about this story, and the guilt that has been wired into most of us about seeing people in various life ditches and not doing enough or not doing anything at all to help. As a priest, I have to tell you that this story provokes more confessions and more attempts at self-justification than any other I know. In the way it’s been handed down to us, once we age out of Church School, it can seem like a hard and stark and unforgiving story.

What I wish I could show you right now is a picture of the narrow winding “road” that goes from Jerusalem to Jericho through the Judean wilderness. The path where this story takes place descends about 3300 feet over about 17 miles through what looks like a moonscape of barren rocky mountains. I’ve never seen any desert that’s so hard, so stark, or so unforgiving. The sun is relentless. It’s windy. It’s devoid of vegetation. And it’s notoriously dangerous. People can hide in the caves and the rock crevices and come out of nowhere fast. It is a wild and notorious hideout for bandits. One wonders what kind of idiot would be traveling alone down that road. One wonders kind of idiot would stand alone in the pulpit thinking that there’s a way to open up this story and hear something new. (As it turns out, I am that kind of idiot.)

In the context of the Gospel of Luke, it’s important to know that Jesus and his followers have just recently been refused hospitality in Samaria. The disciples have eagerly offered to annihilate the inhospitable Samaritans. There were generations of enmity between the ancient Israelites and ancient Samaritans. Samaritans, according to Israelites, had shockingly low religious standards with regard to cleanliness, customs and rituals and they didn’t worship in Jerusalem. Samaritans were disgusting to Israelites. Jesus had already admonished his followers for their violent desire to punish the Samaritans for the lack of welcome to a group headed to Jerusalem. Then he offered instructions for what to do when hospitality isn’t offered – simply allow your peace to return to you, depart and shake the dust off your feet. In other words, don’t carry any of the dirt of rejection with you into the next place you go. But I can imagine that the disciples were still muttering. They just thought very little of Samaritans.

Along comes a lawyer – who asks Jesus about what way of life is guaranteed to please the Holy One. Jesus responds with this question: what is written? How do you read it? (the word in the second question is how, not what) How do you interpret scripture, Jesus asks. The lawyer rightly cites the way that one will live when one is following the central most command in the Hebrew Bible, which is to listen deeply – to hear – to take in fully the Oneness of the Divine. He replies, you will love with your whole entire self – body, spirit, and mind. Although he hear that part as an imperative – as a command, it actually is a description of what will happen. In Hebrew the verb “love” is in imperfect tense which means incomplete action (unfinished). In Greek, it is indicative future active. It’s how it will be when a one listens to The One. And the lawyer cites a command from Leviticus: you will love your neighbor as yourself. (19:18) which is right next to the command to treat aliens as well as citizens – love an alien living in your land as yourself (19:34).  The combining of these passages was an established rabbinic practice (not something that Jesus invented, or that Christianity invented). Jesus’ reponse “you have given the right answer,” is also a rabbinic phrase. “Do this and you will fully live,” refers to Leviticus 18:5.

This is not like the Germanic command tone my father used to take when he would say “you will do it and you will like it!” It’s more, this is what will happen when you listen, and this is the path to eternal life. Loving, treating others long your path with compassion (neighbor literally means ‘near one’), with what Thomas Merton called “a fierce bonding love” – this is eternal life. The word that gets translated mercy is not pity at all, but gut-level compassion.

So, “Right,” says Jesus. “But where does one draw the line,” says the lawyer? How far are we supposed to go with this near-one, this neighbor business? When have I done enough? (It’s a reasonable question. I ask it myself several times a day!) And Jesus answer is about someone traveling alone through dangerous territory who must have had something worth stealing. Not only is he robbed, but he’s left without any clothing that would identify him by class or job or accomplishment or tribe. He’s identifiable only by his victimhood – by what has happened to him – and he is as good as dead.

A priest traveled down that road, by chance, saw the victim and passed by on the other side. Likewise, a religious, moved to the other side of the road when he saw the victim. Now contrary to what we might have learned in Sunday School, there’s an instruction in the Talmud that, although there are generally rules to keep priests and religious undefiled by dead bodies, it is their duty, their obligation, to bury a neglected corpse. In the Mishnah, it is clear that care for a neglected corpse takes priority over purity. So while Jesus or his followers might be critical of a particular priest and a particular religious who don’t do their duty, we probably shouldn’t jump on that bandwagon with them too quickly. I can tell you, for example, that not a day goes by when someone doesn’t feel disappointed at your priest for not doing more.

The shocker of course, is that right when the hearers are all clucking their tongues at the priest and religious who are not living up to peoples’ expectations of them, right when the hearers expect to be told that it was an ordinary Israelite who came to the rescue and did the right thing, Jesus says that it was a Samaritan. A Samaritan was the last person on earth that they would expect to help – and the last person on earth from whom they would want to receive help. And of course, the Samaritan didn’t just help – he treated the wounds with disinfectant and healing oil, used his own animal to transport the victim to an inn, paid two days’ wages and promised more when he returned. Jesus’ question and the lawyer’s answer are forms of the Arab proverb “to have a good neighbor you have to be one.” Showing compassion creates nearness where there was none.