Text: Luke 10:25-37
Speaker: Joel Miller
When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Thenl they went on to another village.
This passage takes place at the end of Luke chapter 9. In the way Luke structures his gospel, this is the pivotal moment when Jesus resolves to go from his home area of Galilee, in the north, with its quiet villages of Nazareth and Capernaum, to Jerusalem, down south – the religious and political center of his people. For the next 10 chapters Jesus will be making his way to the holy city. Toward the end of the journey he’ll pass through Jericho. That’s where he heals a blind man begging by the side of the road. That’s where he meets up with Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who invites Jesus to his house. Jericho to Jerusalem was the last leg of this route. About 18 winding miles, a half mile vertical climb, mostly desert. It wasn’t an easy route.
It also wasn’t the only route from Galilee to Jerusalem, and definitely not the shortest. The shortest route was the one Jesus started to take, through Samaria. That’s where, earlier, in John, Jesus met up with the woman at the well, where they discussed living water, and whether Jerusalem in Judea, or Mt Gerizim in Samaria was the true place of worship.
This was not exactly friendly territory. There were age-old hostilities between Samaritans and Jews that went all the way back to different experiences of exile and resettlement under the Assyrians and Persians. It was a centuries long extended family feud over claims to land and scriptures and holy sites and belonging. Just little stuff like the Judeans allying with the Greeks to destroy the Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerezim. That was around the year 100 BCE. And, around the time Jesus was born, a group of Samaritans defiling the Jerusalem temple by scattering human bones throughout the premises. You know, nothing offensive, or anything. Just some friendly pranks. The tensions didn’t stop some Galileans from taking the more direct route through Samaria as they made pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And it didn’t stop Jesus from trying.
When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him;but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-53).
Jesus and his companions get turned back from going through Samaria. It wasn’t that there was no room in the inn. It was that there wasn’t room for them. For their kind. They are refused service. So they go another route, the long way round. The one that passes through Jericho, up the winding road to Jerusalem. All because of those punk, offensive, inhospitable Samaritans. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just wipe them out with fire from heaven? That’s Luke chapter 9.
So in the very next chapter, Luke 10, starting down that alternative route, what does Jesus do? How does Jesus respond when a legal expert strikes up a conversation with him, about what it means to love one’s neighbor as oneself? What will Jesus say with this experience of un-neighborliness so fresh on his mind? Well here’s what he does: He tells a parable about a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho – that same road Jesus and company will soon take. In this parable, the pilgrim is attacked by robbers, which did happen occasionally. And as he’s lying there, “half dead,” Jesus says, on the side of the road, not one, but two of his own people pass him by, a priest and a Levite. But then a third person comes along, and tends to his wounds with oil and wine. He uses his own animal to carry him to an inn, and offers to pay as much as is needed while than man heals. Shockingly, for those listening to Jesus tell the parable, this third person, the only one who came to the aid of the pilgrim, was a Samaritan.
We’re not shocked, and we’re certainly not offended. You’re not shocked, and I’m not shocked. We’re not shocked because we’ve heard this parable before. It has become one of the best known stories from the Bible. We know how it goes. And what have Samaritans ever done to us anyways? And even if you have never heard this parable before, and you get ahold of this large book called the Bible, and you open it to Luke chapter 10 and start reading this parable, you’re not going to be shocked. Because the header so conveniently placed before this story says “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.” Which is an absolute spoiler. It’s like if the movie The Sixth Sense was instead called “The Guy Who Was Dead All Along.” If you haven’t seen that, that is indeed a spoiler. But you had like 25 years to watch it. I don’t like to offend people, but if you are offended by this spoiler I can almost certainly assure you you’re not as offended as those who first heard this parable and didn’t see it coming.
Whether we know anything or not about first century near eastern ethnic conflicts and the history behind them, there is something universal about a story that elevates the simple act of caring for a fellow human being. Our present time is a good one for this simple reminder. Lisa Schirch is a Mennonite scholar at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame and someone I’ve been paying attention to on social media the last couple months. In a post back in February she wrote this:
In peacebuilding, there are several hundred “theories of change.”…For many academics, the main theory of change is an analysis that there is injustice in the world going unaddressed, and their intervention is to write articles and books to call attention to this injustice or to lay out alternatives. In these times, theologians are calling us back to more basic theories of change. People are suffering physically and mentally from the stress and anxiety of oppression; and loving our neighbors and kindness to strangers is an intervention that at its most basic level helps us build the world we want to live in. (February 23 Facebook post)
I don’t think she knew she was providing commentary for the March 9th gospel reading of the Narrative Lectionary, but it’s pretty spot on. As Lisa points out, sometimes what needs done to build peace can be as immediate and simple as showing compassion to person next to you, whether you know them or not. And that’s actually a rather empowering thought. Even if the system isn’t progressing in the way you think it could or should, everyone of us has the capacity to be like the Samaritan in this story. We can offer what little time and resources we have, in the spirit of kindness. All the more radical and subversive if it is someone not from your people or in-group. If this is your main takeaway from today, this is a beautiful thing.
Simple acts of compassion matter.
And…
There’s always an and…
There’s more going on here than a surprise ending with a surprisingly simple message. There’s more swirling around this parable than a moral lesson. The conflict between Jews and Samaritans isn’t the only contested territory in this passage. What I find especially significant this time around with this familiar text is the tension within Jesus’ own tradition, which translates directly into the tension within our own tradition.
Because when Jesus sent that delegation to the Samaritan village and they get denied room and board, and James and John turn to Jesus and ask “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven to consume them?” they aren’t just making that up on that spot. They aren’t just flying off in a blind rage, although, seriously guys, what are you thinking? Well here’s what they’re thinking: They’re thinking about their scriptures. They’ve got the Bible on their mind. They’re thinking about that story in 1 Kings when the king of Samaria sent messengers to Elijah the prophet, and Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume them because he was upset up at the King of Samaria. Slightly less familiar story than our beloved parable, but it’s in there. That’s part of the tradition. That’s part of our tradition.
It’s what gives this exchange between Jesus and the expert in the law, the Bible scholar, added weight. Jesus asks him what he reads in the scriptures as most essential. Love God with all your being, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” says the Bible scholar, quoting Leviticus. Yes. Yes, says Jesus, do this and you will live.
You shall call down fire from heaven on your neighbor. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. They’re both in there. They’re both part of the same tradition. They’re both part of the Christian tradition. Not just because of the Bible, but in the last 2000 years Christianity has been used to both destroy and to heal. And in our present moment, when a certain flavor of Christian nationalism is showing itself, citing the tradition, calling on the fire of Elijah rather than the oil and wine of the Samaritan, that question posed back to Jesus is just as significant: And who is my neighbor? Just how far does this love command extend? When dealing with the despised neighbor, which part of the tradition do we draw on? Jesus has a parable for that.
And here’s the kicker.
When Jesus tells gives his memorable response, he wasn’t talking to Samaritans. He was talking to his own people. People who made that annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem rather than Mt. Gerezim. Which means Jesus tells a story about extreme neighborliness in which none of his eager listeners are the hero of the story. In this parable the listener first identifies with the person in need of a neighbor – the pilgrim on his pilgrimage, walking that road between Jerusalem and Jericho, left for dead.
The season of Lent is our annual pilgrimage-in-place. It’s the season when we join Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, which ends at the cross, and the empty tomb. There are simple acts of compassion we can perform all along this road that can relieve suffering of our fellow beings and bring us closer to the heart of God. But, just as an experiment, let’s say we’re beginning this Lent not in the position of the strong and able bodied helper, but in the position of the one in need of help along the pilgrim way. We’re injured. We’re hurting. If not in body, then in our spirits. We may be half-alive, but it’s the half-dead part we feel.
The challenge from Jesus for this journey is to keep our hearts open for wherever love expresses itself. Where will love and healing come from? It might not be our own people. They may let us down. But Divine love has a way of inhabiting the most surprising of places, and people.
Who is our neighbor? It could be anybody, Jesus seems to be saying. Even those people. Don’t count anyone out. Keep your heart open. Who knows, we might be surprised, even shocked.
May God bless this Lenten pilgrimage.
