the basic message #E203
10/19/03
Luke 10:30-37
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 fell into the hands of 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, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins 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."
In our society, the term "Good Samaritan" has become somewhat of a cliche. We have somehow decided that every Samaritan is good, but the passage above never calls the Samaritan good. The reality of the situation was simple- the man who was robbed was most likely a Jew, and Jews and Samaritans hated each other with a passion. Let's try to translate the situation to modern times substituting radical Christians and radical Muslims in the roles. Let's come up with a scenario with much less "involvement". Let's say the Christian is on the way to a business meeting and sees a man on the side of the road with car trouble. The Christian stops and walks to the car, and a man of middle-eastern descent steps out. Just to keep things interesting, let's say that the Muslim introduces himself and tells the Christian that he is on the way to the mosque to help in an important religious ceremony. He explains politely and earnestly that he really needs to be there, and the Christian has no reason to believe otherwise. The Muslim is clearly not a wealthy man, and his 30 year-old Toyota is on its last leg. It seems to need a radiator hose, and the Muslim has tried to wrap duct tape around the hose to get going, but it's not working. So what does the Christian do? Conventional wisdom in our modern times would be to reject the needs of the Muslim, especially since he's going to a mosque to help in a ceremony contrary to Christian beliefs. So? In the "Good Samaritan" story in Luke, we don't know what the Jew was going to do when he arrived at his destination. Perhaps he was even going to a meeting to discuss ridding the area of Samaritans! We don't know the specifics of the story, and guess what? Jesus is telling us not to get bogged-down in such thoughts- instead, just help people.
So what should the Christian do? Many denominations would say he should give the Muslim a Christian tract or explain the message of salvation to the man. What would Jesus have us do? I'd guess he'd say, "Take the guy down to Autozone and buy a radiator hose for his car, maybe a gallon of coolant and a cheap screwdriver to take the hose clamps off." "And while you're at it, give the guy at Autozone another $20 and tell him to give the guy some other stuff if he needs it."
So what would you do? The story of the Samaritan, as I mentioned earlier, showed a much higher level of involvement with the other party, so in comparison, my scenario isn't that hard to fathom. Sadly, we modern Christians have made some decisions among ourselves as to who our neighbor is and how we should treat him. Jesus cuts us no slack in the matter, so don't waste your time looking for loopholes. I think his purpose was, and still is, simple. Rather than preach to the guy or evangelize, Jesus is telling us to love our fellow man- regardless of his race, creed or religious background. By loving him we will be serving out the greatest form of evangelization known to man.