Re-Thinking the Parable of the Good Samaritan - A Response to the Tim Keller's of the World

Many claim the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches we should be kind to others, regardless of their background.  While this is certainly a laudable sentiment, it is not the main point at all.  Given the lamentable reference to this parable over the years, and particularly right now, I would like to offer the following thoughts.

First, too often, I think people jump right to the parable without understanding the context.  A text without context is a pretext for a proof text.  (Not original with me, but lots of people have said it, so I’m not sure who gets credit!).  We can’t ignore the circumstances that resulted in Jesus telling this parable.

Here’s a brief summary.  Luke 10:25 starts with a teacher of the law asking Jesus how he can inherit eternal life, intending to test Jesus.  Jesus, as typical, asks the teacher what he thinks.  My rough paraphrase: the teacher says love God and love my neighbor.  Jesus tells him he should keep doing this and he will live.  The teacher of the law wants to “justify himself.”  He asks Jesus “who is my neighbor?”  Jesus then tells the familiar parable of a priest and a Levite passing by a wounded man lying on the roadside.  Only a Samaritan is willing to help the man.  In fact, the Samaritan puts himself out significantly to help this stranger.  Jesus then asks the teacher, “which was a neighbor?” The teacher says “the one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus says he is correct and tells the teacher of the law to go and do likewise.

The context of the parable is the question “how do I inherit eternal life” not the question how do I treat other people.  The teacher thinks he already knows the answer, and while he is partly correct, he doesn’t fully understand the implications of his answer.  Too often we focus on the Samaritan and the Jewish belief the Samaritans were “lesser” because they were not of pure Jewish blood.  This is important because Jesus liked to use shocking comparisons in order to make a point.  In context, though, Jesus could have used a shepherd or an Egyptian and the point would have been just as effective.

Let me offer the following shocking possibility for you to consider: you and I are NOT the Samaritan, Jesus is, therefore God is.  I’ll come back to this idea in a moment. 

The word translated justify here is used throughout the New Testament  The discussion is about justification – in other words, how one becomes right with God.  To mute this and turn the parable into a mere directive to treat others nicely is not what Jesus is teaching.  In fact, that devolves into mere moralism.  Moreover, we lose something incredibly important if my understanding is right. 

So what’s going on in the parable then?  Jesus directs the parable to the teacher’s question about justification.  In light of this, one might at first conclude the parable means one should go find people to help in order that one might obtain salvation through works-righteousness.  However, this is clearly incorrect.  The Samaritan is on the road for his own purposes, as are the priest and Levite.  None of them are portrayed as seeking a means to make themselves right with God.  So, if this isn’t about works making one righteous, what’s going on?  The priest and Levite are representative of the teacher of the law, they know the right answer but don’t do it and don’t really believe what they claim to believe.  They are self-justifiers, assuming their knowledge and keeping of the law are sufficient without truly acknowledging the God behind the law.  The Samaritan, on the other hand, as the teacher of the law concedes, showed the beaten man mercy.  Interesting choice of words.  Not kindness, not generosity, not even help.  Mercy suggests the Samaritan didn’t owe the beaten man anything, but rather, put himself out to help him.  It cost the Samaritan something to provide for this nearly dead man.

This sounds an awful lot like how God treats us: God loves us so much that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.  Romans 5:8.  God didn’t owe us salvation, but gave it anyway, at great cost – his one and only Son.  John 3:16.

The Samaritan acted with mercy, the way God treats us.  We are to treat others with mercy not out of sheer obedience; that’s precisely what the teacher of the law was seeking.  He wanted to know he’d checked off the “love my neighbor” box so he could inherit eternal life, as if inheriting eternal life were a matter of doing things.  We act mercifully because it shows others how God loves them, not because it shows our own kindness or decency and not because it proves anything about us.  We are, as Jesus said elsewhere, to be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect.  Matthew 5:48.  The teacher of the law understood the basic principle but missed the larger point of  why we do it.  If we turn the parable into nothing more than a glib directive to be neighborly, then start applying it without reference to the need all have to be justified before God in order to inherit eternal life, we’re no different than the teacher of the law.  We’ve missed the why by focusing on the what.

Jesus is the Good Samaritan.  He shows mercy to those on the road of life who have been stricken by their circumstances (in this case beaten by robbers).  Unlike us, he doesn’t mind bearing the cost of showing mercy and gladly takes care of those in need.  Someone must save us, and it isn’t a priest or an elder or Sunday school teacher or even a parent. More importantly, we cannot, by any effort, justify ourselves.

So while some, even some heavyweight Christians, are busy pointing to this parable as a basis for demanding Christians engage politically, or demanding that we must be neighborly, and then assigning their own views of what this look likes, the parable makes clear being justified requires intervention from someone outside ourselves.  WE are the beaten man!  We are not able to help ourselves.

So why, then, did Jesus tell us to go and do likewise?  Because as Christians we seek to emulate our Lord. We should be willing to show mercy because we have received mercy; we do this not as a means of justification but as an act of sanctification. We are obedient because it is right and proper.  It makes us more Christ-like.  We show others what true mercy looks like so that they might find the mercy we received from the Samaritan’s purse.