BANDITS ON THE ROAD
The Good Samaritan is a very familiar parable, and on one level the point is absolutely clear. But it’s always worth trying to go a little deeper. Precisely because the main point – that we are commanded to assist those in need, even at cost to ourselves – is so clear, it’s easy to miss some details.
The first thing that struck me on re-reading the passage is that Jesus tells the story in response to a lawyer who had asked him what he had to do to inherit eternal life. We’re told that the lawyer was trying to test Jesus. Was this to trip him up? Debating for the sake of it? Or was the lawyer’s concern with himself? ‘How much, or how little, do I have to do to be rewarded?’ Like the prophets, Jesus often emphasised doing the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do. But he answers the lawyer, and the lawyer then asks, ‘who is my neighbour?’ I can imagine Jesus maybe sighing with exasperation at this point.
Anyway, Jesus goes on with the story. The priest and the Levite, commentators tell us, were likely worried that the bandits’ victim might die – avoiding the ritual impurity of a dead body was why they passed by. So on one level their behaviour was understandable, even correct. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on them, just as I, and maybe you, sympathise with the dutiful elder brother of the prodigal son. A lot of Jesus’ stories are like that – there’s more than one way to look at things.
As we know, the Samaritan helped the other person – generously, for the money he gave the innkeeper was about two days’ pay. More importantly, the Samaritan crossed all sorts of boundaries in doing so. I wonder what the other person felt on realising that their rescuer was one of the despised. It’s worth noting, too, that Luke places the story shortly after Jesus sent out the 72 disciples. The story of the Good Samaritan — ‘go and do likewise’ – therefore, is directed at all who follow Jesus, not just a too-clever-by-half lawyer.
In his encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti (Brothers and Sisters All—it’s easy to find online), Pope Francis reflected at length on the story. ‘The parable eloquently presents the basic decision we need to make in order to rebuild our wounded world. In the face of so much pain and suffering, our only course is to imitate the Good Samaritan… a community can be rebuilt by men and women who identify with the vulnerability of others, who reject the creation of a society of exclusion, and act instead as neighbours, lifting up and rehabilitating the fallen for the sake of the common good… The decision to include or exclude those lying wounded along the roadside can serve as a criterion for judging every economic, political, social and religious project. Each day we have to decide whether to be Good Samaritans or indifferent bystanders’.
Jim McAloon
