Luke 10:25-37 (Year C, Proper 10)
the Good Sam among the lectionary witnesses
The gospel this week is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here are the most interesting things I’ve noticed, and some connections with the other lectionary texts:
25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Test” is what Satan did to Jesus in Luke 4 and what the wilderness generation did at Meribah. Only, this time, Jesus engages the test in good faith.
This week’s psalm explains why: “Gracious and upright is the Lord; therefore he teaches sinners in his way. He guides the humble in doing right and teaches his way to the lowly” (Psalm 25:7-8).
26He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
We’ll call this a proof-text that shows Jesus is interested in people’s readings of the law. Mark’s Jesus says, “Who do you say that I am?” Luke’s Jesus says, “What do you read there?”
I think Jesus will engage us in our own questions the more we attend, ourselves, to the law, with whatever resources we may have available to us.
27He answered, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” 28And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
Today’s Old Testament lesson (Track 2) explains this two ways.
First, Obey God by observing his commandments with your heart and soul, “and the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors” (Deut. 30:9).
The shorthand for all this is “live,” but “life” is so foreign to us that we need it seplled out.
Next, “Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away… No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (Deut. 30:11, 14). By making the lawyer answer out loud, Jesus made it clear the word was in his mouth.
Was it in his heart? That’s for God alone to judge, but perhaps it’s in the ‘in his heart’ bit that motivated the pathos-/ ethos-exuding story that follows.
29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Existential point: I don’t place the emphasis on ‘justify’ but on ‘himself.’ It’s a sign of unhealth to respond to a conversation about the moral life with self-concern. Spiritual life looks more like God-concern and others-concern.
Textual point: The lawyer didn’t make this question up. This was a live question based on a curious conflation of two Hebrew terms in the LXX of Lev. 19:17-18. I take the lawyer as asking an honest Bible study question that combines (1) close attention to the text of Torah to (2) sincere existential concern.
30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, 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 while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.
I’m persuaded there are two keys to this passage. The first is the word ‘saw.’ The question it implies is, How do you respond to what you see?
The second is that this story is a commentary on Lev. 21:1-4: The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his relatives, except for his nearest kin: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother; likewise, for a virgin sister close to him because she has had no husband, he may defile himself for her. But he shall not defile himself for those related to him by marriage and so profane himself.’
In short, a priest should not touch a dead body unless it is ‘his nearest kin.’ In one sense, the priest in the story world acts sensibly. I argue that Jesus subtly indicts the priest for not recognizing the stranger as his ‘nearest kin.’ This would mean Jesus responds to the question, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ by saying, ‘Neighbor? IDK. But foreigners are even closer family than your in-laws.’ Sick midrash, Jesus.
34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
The fields are white for spiritual interpretation of the concrete elements of these sentences. I’ll let everyone’s imagination run wild here, as it should, when we think about mission.
This time, I noticed that the Good Samaritan takes care of the man in someone else’s inn. Hm.
35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’
‘Take care’ repeats, and the point, I think, is to give the innkeeper a moral exhortation to do to the man just what he had done himself. It gives ‘as I have loved you’ (John 13:34).
The ‘when I come back’ gives resurrection of the dead and final judgment. The innkeeper is charged, ultimately, with works of faith, hope, and love:
Faith: Believe that this foreign man, a Samaritan, will keep his promise to return and repay (Ps. 25:1-2).
Hope: Imagine the man’s health, and your own abundance (Deut. 30:9-10)
Love: Take care of the man.
Or, to pull them all together, here is this from this week’s epistle: In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven (Col. 1:3-5).
36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Notably, the man does not say, “The one who took care of him,” using the language from the story.
Rather, he calls the Samaritan “the doer-of-mercy” (ho poiēsas to eleos). Why that construct? Why not, “the third one,” “the Samaritan,” or “the caretaker (epimeloumenos, a word already present in the story)?
Constructs of the verb, poieō, and the value, eleos, are common in Torah. Three key examples:
From the Decalogue: “You shall not make for yourself an idol… for I, Yahweh, am a jealous God… showing steadfast love (poiōn eleos)…” (Exodus 20:4-6).
From Yahweh’s self-revelation to Moses: “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (poiōn eleos)” (Exodus 34:6-7).
Isaac uses it to describe Rebekah’s care (Genesis 24:12, 14, 44, 49).
When he answers Jesus’s question by saying, ho poiēsas to eleos met’ autou, what he means is, “the one who embodied the character of the God who revealed Himself to Moses.”
And this is the happy ending of the real-world story about the law-expert. He has Torah not only in his mouth but in his heart.
So may we all.