Neighbor Love
Intro:
Our relationship with fellow human beings validates or invalidates our claims to know and love God.
This is not a call to perfection. Only Jesus totally loved God and his neighbor as himself. Only Jesus was consistently merciful to everyone who came his way. But it is a call to consider whether in our relationships there is evidence that we love God. Are we merciful? Are we truly compassionate with others? If we characteristically pass by those who are in distress—physical, economic, social—we are probably not Christians. Are we forgiving? If not, we are very likely outside grace and yet unforgiven (cf. Matthew 6:14–15).
How we live with others is shorthand for how we are related to God. May self-examination drive us to grace!
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Historical study has revealed that Karl Marx, the self-proclaimed defender of the working-class proletariat, never truly knew or had a friendship with a single member of the proletariat. So far as researchers know, he never set foot in a mill or a factory or a mine or any other industrial workplace in his whole life. Living a self-conscious, Bohemian, intellectual lifestyle he knew poverty, but he always kept company with middle-class intellectuals like himself. When he and Friedrich Engels created the Communist League, and again when they formed the International, he made sure that working-class socialists were eliminated from any positions of influence.2
It is also clear that for all his endeavors to be the social benefactor of humankind, he disliked people and continuously fought with members of his family. Marx lived his life in an atmosphere of verbal violence, quarreling with everyone with whom he associated for any length of time. He worked hard at becoming middle-class, bourgeois. Thanks to Engels, Marx spent the last two decades of his life in comfortable middle-class homes, and for the last ten years he never had less than two servants!
Actually, there was one working-class person in Marx’s life—his wife’s maid, by whom he fathered a son, which he publicly denied. That was too bad because his son Henry Frederich Demuth (his maid’s last name) became one of the real proletariat. After being foster-raised by a working-class family, he spent his life working at King’s Cross and Hackney as a member of the engineer’s union.
The road from Jerusalem down to Jericho was indeed a dangerous one. Since the temple workers used it so much, you would have thought the Jews or Romans would have taken steps to make it safe. It is much easier to maintain a religious system than it is to improve the neighborhood.
Most of us can think up excuses for the priest and Levite as they ignored the victim. (Maybe we have used them ourselves!) The priest had been serving God at the temple all week and was anxious to get home. Perhaps the bandits were still lurking in the vicinity and using the victim as “bait.” Why take a chance? Anyway, it was not his fault that the man was attacked. The road was busy, so somebody else was bound to come along and help the man. The priest left it to the Levite, and then the Levite did what the priest did—nothing! Such is the power of the bad example of a religious man.
By using a Samaritan as the hero, Jesus disarmed the Jews, for the Jews and Samaritans were enemies (John 4:9; 8:48). It was not a Jew helping a Samaritan but a Samaritan helping a Jew who had been ignored by his fellow Jews! The Samaritan loved those who hated him, risked his own life, spent his own money (two days’ wages for a laborer), and was never publicly rewarded or honored as far as we know.
10:27. The legal expert offers the answers sometimes given by Jewish teachers (and by Jesus; see Mk 12:29–31), citing Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.
The question in this case was not sincere, as can be seen from two points in the text: (1) The lawyer wanted to test Jesus. (He called Jesus “Teacher,” didaskale, Luke’s equivalent of a Jewish Rabbi.) (2) After Jesus answered the man’s question, Luke recorded that the man wished to justify himself (Luke 10:29).
10:28 do this and you will live. Cf. Ex. 20:11; Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11. “Do and live” is the promise of the law. But since no sinner can obey perfectly, the impossible demands of the law are meant to drive us to seek divine mercy (Gal. 3:10–13, 22–25). This man should have responded with a confession of his own guilt, rather than self-justification (v. 29).
The questioner was a lawyer and therefore one of “the wise and learned” of whom Jesus had only recently said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure” (v. 21). The lawyer was one of those who were sure they had the truth. The childlike openness that Jesus so prized could not be found in them. Luke mentions that he “stood up,” indicating that Jesus and his hearers were seated as he taught. The lawyer’s standing was an assertive gesture to “test” Jesus. He had an agenda, an ulterior motive.
Instead, he tried “to justify himself,” that is, to defend himself against the implications of Jesus’ words. So he tried to move the focus off himself by asking, And who is my neighbor?
10:31. Priests were supposed to avoid especially impurity from a corpse; Pharisees thought one would contract it if even one’s shadow touched the corpse. Like the man who had been robbed, the priest was “going down” (v. 31), hence he was heading from Jerusalem and did not have to worry about being unable to perform duties in the temple. But rules were rules; although the rule of mercy would take precedence if the man were clearly alive, the man looked as if he might be dead (v. 30), and the priest did not wish to take the chance. The task was better left to a Levite or ordinary Israelite. Jesus’ criticism of the priesthood here is milder than that of the Essenes and often that of the prophets (Hos 6:9).
10:32. Rules for Levites were not as strict as for priests, but the Levite also wished to avoid defilement.
Note his assumption of human responsibility in the attainment of eternal life, and see the similar assumption on the part of the rich ruler in 18:18. “Eternal life” (zoēn aiōnion) here means the life of the kingdom (18:18, 24–25, 29; cf. John 3:3, 5, 15–16, 36). This concern regarding life is seen in two stories found in later Jewish tradition in which a rabbi and a merchant respectively ask who desires life. They then quote Psalm 34:12–14 as the means of achieving it (Abodah Zara 19b; R Lev 16).
29 The only way he (or any person) can “justify himself” is to limit the extent of the law’s demand and consequently limit his own responsibility. This maneuver not only fails but has an opposite effect. Jesus will change the man’s very words “who is my neighbor?” from a passive to an active sense (v. 36).
31–32 Priests served in the temple; their highest duty was to offer sacrifices. Levites assisted in the maintenance of the temple services and order. It has been suggested that the priest (v. 31) and the Levite (v. 32) refrained from helping the man because he appeared to be dead and they feared ritual defilement. Jeremias rejects this explanation on the grounds that (1) ritual purity was only significant when carrying out cultic activities; (2) the priest was going “down” (v. 31), i.e., away from Jerusalem, presumably having finished with those duties; (3) the Levite by implication (v. 32) was probably also going away from Jerusalem; and (4) when priests and Levites were on their way to serve in the temple, they traveled in groups; but these two were alone and therefore not on their way to Jerusalem (Parables of Jesus, pp. 203–4). Also, the point of the story seems to require that the priest and the Levite be without excuse.
Jesus uses this story of the “good Samaritan” to reveal this lawyer’s defective heart. He claims to love God and others, but rather than embracing the gospel of Jesus he is “desiring to justify himself” (Luke 10:29).
10:30 down from Jerusalem to Jericho. A rocky, winding, treacherous descent of about 3,300 feet in 17 miles. That stretch of road was notorious for being beset with thieves and danger.
10:32 Levite. These were from the tribe of Levi, but not descendants of Aaron. They assisted the priests in the work of the temple.
10:33 Samaritan. For a Samaritan to travel this road was unusual. The Samaritan himself was risking not only the thieves, but also the hostility of other travelers.
10:34 oil and wine. Probably carried by most travelers in small amounts as a kind of first-aid kit. The wine was antiseptic; the oil soothing and healing.
Our Lord sent the man back to the Law, not because the Law saves us (Gal. 2:16, 21; 3:21), but because the Law shows us that we need to be saved. There can be no real conversion without conviction, and the Law is what God uses to convict sinners (Rom. 3:20).
The scribe gave the right answer, but he would not apply it personally to himself and admit his own lack of love for both God and his neighbor. So, instead of being justified by throwing himself on the mercy of God (Luke 18:9–14), he tried to justify himself and wriggle out of his predicament. He used the old debating tactic, “Define your terms! What do you mean by ‘neighbor’? Who is my neighbor?”
As Jesus told the story, the lawyer and his hearers were expecting something other than what they got. They expected the threefold rhythm of the Semitic story form to reveal that an Israelite layman came by and helped the man. Many people were unhappy with the clergy, and they expected Jesus to say that an average good-guy Jew came along and showed the clergy up. That would be a slap at the establishment, but many, perhaps most, would applaud it.
The Samaritan
No one expected Jesus’ to finish the story the way he did: “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him” (v. 33). A Samaritan? Not long before, James and John had urged the Lord to call down fire from Heaven to destroy some inhospitable Samaritans (cf. 9:54). The hatred between Judea and Samaria went back over 400 years and centered around racial purity, because while the Jews had kept their purity during the Babylonian Captivity, the Samaritans had lost theirs by intermarrying with Assyrian invaders. In the Jews’ eyes the Samaritans were compromising mongrels. Also, the Samaritans had built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim only to have it destroyed by the Jews in Maccabean times.
So in Jesus’ day the hatred was ingrained and utterly implacable. The rabbis said, “Let no man eat the bread of the Cuthites (Samaritans), for he who eats their bread is as he who eats swine’s flesh.” The ultimate insult came in the arsenic-laced Jewish prayer that concluded, “… and do not remember the Cuthites in the Resurrection.” Add to this the fact that in Jesus’ day some Jewish travelers had been murdered in Samaria, and that some Samaritans had defiled the temple with human bones, and you can begin to imagine the shock of Jesus’ introducing a Samaritan not as a villain but as a hero! Indeed, if the Jew in the story were not half-dead, he would probably push away the loathsome Samaritan.
10:29. Jewish teachers usually used “neighbor” to mean “fellow Israelite.” Leviticus 19:18 clearly means “fellow Israelite” in the immediate context, but the less immediate context applies the principle also to any non-Israelite in the land (19:34).
Many people did not have extra clothes, which were thus a valuable item to steal.
10:33. Jews and Samaritans traditionally had no love for each other; although violence was the exception rather than the rule, the literature of each betrays an attitude of hostility toward the other. Jesus’ illustration would offend Jewish listeners, striking at the heart of their patriotism, which was religiously justified.
10:34–35. Oil was used medicinally and for washing wounds; wine was also apparently used to disinfect wounds. Jewish people commonly avoided Gentile, and probably Samaritan, oil. “I will repay” was a standard formula guaranteeing a debt.
The neighbour (ho plēsion) means more than the person who lives nearby (which is ho perioikos, used, for example, in 1:58). There is the thought of community, of fellowship.
And who is my neighbour? He saw that it meant more than the man next door. But how much more? There were different ideas among the Jews on this point, but they all seem to be confined to the nation Israel; the idea of love towards mankind had not reached them. As we approach the parable we must bear in mind that it is told to the lawyer in answer to the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ not, ‘What must I do to be saved?’
30. Jesus did not answer the question directly but told a story. The traveller in the story is clearly a Jew, but no stress is put on this; he is called simply a man. It is the need of the neighbour and not his nationality that is important. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho runs down a steep descent through desolate country. The distance is about 17 miles and the road descends more than 3,000 feet. It is the kind of wild country in which robbers might well be safe. Jesus does not say that the robbers of his story robbed the man: that would be understood. He concentrates on their violent ill-treatment of the traveller. They left him half dead.
The Samaritans were scorned by the Jews because of their mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry. It is ironic, then, that a Samaritan helped the half-dead man, dressing his wounds, taking him to an inn, and paying his expenses. By asking Which … was his neighbor? (Luke 10:36) Jesus was teaching that a person should be a neighbor to anyone he meets in need. The ultimate Neighbor was Jesus, whose compassion contrasted with the Jewish religious leaders who had no compassion on those who were perishing. Jesus wrapped up His teaching with the command that His followers were to live like that true neighbor (v. 37)
33–34. The audience would have expected a priest and a Levite to be followed by an Israelite layman. They would almost certainly now be anticipating an anti-clerical twist to the story. Jesus’ introduction of the Samaritan was thus devastating. In view of the traditional bitterness between Jew and Samaritan, a Samaritan was the last person who might have been expected to help. But this man had compassion on the sufferer. He attended to him as best he could on the spot. Wine would have been used for cleaning the wounds (the alcohol in it would have had an antiseptic effect though, of course, the man could not know that; he only knew that it helped). Oil, i.e. olive oil, would have eased the pain. The two appear to have been widely used by both Jews and Greeks. The wounded man was too weak to walk, so the Samaritan set him on his own beast (which meant that he himself had to walk), and so brought him to an inn. There he took care of him. What this meant is not spelt out, but the Samaritan did not regard his duty as done when he had brought the man to shelter. He continued to look after him.
33–36 “Took pity” (esplanchnisthē) implies a deep feeling of sympathy (v. 33), a striking response that stands in contrast, not only to the attitude of the priest and the Levite, but also to the usual feelings of hostility between Jew and Samaritan. This pity is translated into sacrificial action. The Samaritan probably used pieces of his own clothing to make the bandages (v. 34); he used his own wine as a disinfectant and his own oil as a soothing lotion (Jeremias, Parables of Jesus, p. 204). He put the man on “his own donkey” and paid the innkeeper out of his own pocket (v. 35), with a promise to pay more if needed.
The NT parables aim to lead one to a decision; Jesus’ second counter question (v. 36) forces the “expert in the law” to voice his decision. In his question, Jesus does not focus on the object of neighborly love, the Jewish victim, but on the subject, the Samaritan who made himself a neighbor. This reversal of the “expert’s” question (v. 29) provides in itself the key to the meaning of the parable and to Jesus’ teaching on love. Love should not be limited by its object; its extent and quality are in the control of its subject. Furthermore, love is demonstrated in action, in this case in an act of mercy. It may be costly: cloth, wine, oil, transportation, money, and sacrifice of time. There is a striking reversal of roles here. The Jewish “expert” would have thought of the Jewish victim as a good person and the Samaritan as an evil one. To a Jew there was no such person as a “good” Samaritan. Jesus could have told the story with a Samaritan victim and a Jewish helper, but the role reversal drives the story home by shaking the hearer loose from his preconceptions.
How beautiful this was! The Samaritan applied ancient first aid, humbly gave his donkey to the Jew and walked alongside, gave the innkeeper two silver coins (enough for twenty-four days’ food), and promised to pay the whole bill when he returned. Instead of being the battered Jew’s worst nightmare, he was his best dream!
The lawyer wanted to discuss “neighbor” in a general way, but Jesus forced him to consider a specific man in need. How easy it is for us to talk about abstract ideals and fail to help solve concrete problems. We can discuss things like “poverty” and “job opportunities” and yet never personally help feed a hungry family or help somebody find a job.
Of course, the lawyer wanted to make the issue somewhat complex and philosophical, but Jesus made it simple and practical. He moved it from duty to love, from debating to doing. To be sure, our Lord was not condemning discussions or debates; He was only warning us not to use these things as excuses for doing nothing. Committees are not always committed!
This parable defines one’s neighbor and thus redefines how to love God. In discussing the various people groups within Jewish society, the audience would have expected Jesus to name these three groups: priests, Levites, and the people (cf. 2 Chr 34:30; 35:2, 7; Ezra 2:70; 8:15; Neh 7:73; 11:3); but Jesus surprises the audience by replacing the people with a Samaritan. More important, this Samaritan exemplifies mercy (v. 37). Further, Jesus portrays the one lying on the ground as one who falls among robbers and is stripped, beaten, and abandoned. These descriptions match those applied to Jesus when he dies on the cross (22:63–65; 23:32, 39; John 19:1–2, 23). Eternal life is defined not simply by acts of kindness but by properly responding to Jesus.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
10:36–37. Jesus’ questioner would hate Samaritans, yet he is forced to follow the moral example of a Samaritan in Jesus’ story. This parable forced him to answer his own question, “Who is my neighbor?” (10:29).
The command to go and do likewise (v. 37)—that is, show mercy to others—is not an “entrance requirement” for eternal life. Rather, it is a call to follow Jesus’ way of loving God and others from the heart. Indeed, it is simply a life mindful of the way we have been loved, instead of living out of self-justification (v. 29).
10:36 neighbor to him. Jesus reversed the lawyer’s original question (v. 29). The lawyer assumed it was up to others to prove themselves neighbor to him (see note on v. 29). Jesus’ reply makes it clear that each has a responsibility to be a neighbor—especially to those who are in need.
Jesus was like the Samaritan. He was the outcast One, who was willing to seek and to save people who were perishing. He was directly opposed to the religious establishment. The theme is reminiscent of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees (7:44–50). The theme of Jesus’ going to those who needed Him became more and more evident.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7). He was not saying that one can merit God’s mercy by performing acts of mercy, but rather that those who are truly God’s children, and as such are objects of his mercy, will themselves be merciful and so will receive mercy in the end. Showing mercy to one’s neighbor is evidence of having received mercy.
37 The “expert” cannot avoid the thrust of the parable, though he apparently finds it impossible to say the word “Samaritan” in his reply. Jesus now refers back to the original question, “What must I do?” by saying, “Go and do likewise.” Both this man and the rich ruler of 18:18–25 needed to learn that God does not bestow the life of the kingdom on those who reject the command to love. Such rejection shows that they have not truly recognized how much they need the love of God themselves. In this respect they are identified with Simon the Pharisee rather than with the woman who was forgiven much and therefore loved much (7:36–50).