Valuing Samaritans and Others - Luke 10:25-37

The Samaritan in Luke 10 is a man not valued or respected in his society. You will notice that the expert in the law couldn’t even bring himself to name the Samaritan as the one who had been a good neighbour. He takes the roundabout route of answering Jesus’ question on that matter by saying that it was the one who had mercy on him. The Samaritan was not valued – and yet he gave freely to a stranger.

It is actually interesting to note that this whole story was about people who would be looked down on by the man who asked the question. He was an expert in the law. That’s what we’re told about him. Now, I actually find it fascinating that Jesus, who usually tried to connect so well with people, answers this man’s question with a story about a bunch of characters who he would have had no time for. If we look carefully, there are six characters, or groups of characters, in the story. Three play active roles and three really are in the background. If ever we have acted this out in Junior Church, Sunday School or whatever, and probably many of us have, then we probably have started with the robbers attacking the man and have seen that as the most active bit. In terms of dramatic action that might be so. However, in terms of the story it’s not. That is just background, context. The three active characters are those who come across the wounded man, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan. Now the point is that this man was an expert in the law. We’re not actually told that he was a Pharisee, though that was the role that the Pharisees usually adopted. Certainly, if he wasn’t, as an expert in the law, he would have been alongside them. The priest and the Levite were part of the religious set-up, and we might imagine that this expert in the law, Pharisee or not, would align himself with them also. The priest and the Levite were associated with the temple – and, in fact, the Pharisees were often in tension with the temple and its cult. They concentrated on a very careful interpretation of the law, the torah, and weren’t much interested in anything that wasn’t focussed there. They looked for such a high standard that no one else could really get alongside them.

And, of course, the Samaritan would be really beyond the pale. Apart from the problems caused by his ethnicity, he was, most likely, like the wounded man, a trader. After all, why else would either of them be travelling that road? And traders weren’t up to much either. They were notoriously dishonest – and their itinerant lifestyle made it virtually impossible for them to observe appropriate standards of purity and hygiene.

Innkeepers were another despised group. Their whole lives and livelihoods centred around places where transients could find accommodation. Remember that, in the context of the times, the only people who would stay at an inn would be those who had no family in the area and no social or economic claims on anyone’s hospitality. They were needed, but it was very much a last resort.

And that only leaves the robbers. Again it is interesting to dig just very slightly into the context. In first century Palestine these probably would not have been simple muggers or highwaymen, but rather some of the roving terrorists staging their own form of protest against various types of official and unofficial exploitation of the poor. Strangely, this may even have been the one group in the parable that some of Jesus’ audience might have had some sympathy with. Maybe some of them had even done this Robin Hood type thing – setting on wealthy travellers in order to do a bit of unofficial redistribution of wealth.

But, even if there were some sympathetic to the robbers, it certainly wouldn’t include the lawyer who, doubtless, was a potential victim of such himself. So, in a sense, the story is not just about an unexpected neighbour – though that is a big element in it – but it is also about saying that everyone has a story, and that everyone has value.