Unexpected Compassion

Lawrence W. Ladd, The Good Samaritan, ca. 1880, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., click on image to link.

Sermon Series “Through the Bible,” № 55.

But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. –Luke 10:33

You can read this third book in the New Testament, and never find the name of its author. By the last half of the second century C.E., Church tradition identified him as “Luke,” who traveled with the Apostle Paul. In the fourth chapter of Colossians, Paul refers to Luke as “the beloved physician,” and some scholars think he shows a special interest in Jesus’ ministry of healing.

Of all the gospel writers, Luke is the one who, scholars say, has the heart of a historian. From the outset, he tells the reader that he is writing “an orderly account,” “after investigating everything carefully.” The scope of his history extends further than the other gospels. In the middle of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, he shifts from his gospel to the Acts of the Apostles, which continues the history about the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and the development of the early Church. Most Bible scholars think of Luke and Acts as one history in two volumes, in which the good news born in Jesus is eventually spread into all the known world of his time.

Like Matthew, the Gospel of Luke appears to rely on the Gospel of Mark for much of its information. It shares some material with Matthew that is not found in Mark. Among the material unique to the Gospel of Luke are two of Jesus’ most loved parables, which I’ll focus on in this series, the Parable of the Prodigal Son (for next time) and (today) the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The occasion for this story’s telling is Jesus’ encounter with a lawyer, in Greek a “nomikos,” an expert in the Law, sometimes referred to as a “scribe.”[1] The lawyer comes to test Jesus. As part of that test, he asks for a precise definition of the “neighbor” whom the Law calls him to love. 

Frederick Buechner says that presumably the lawyer was looking for a particular kind of answer, one that fit comfortably with the view of life to which he was accustomed.  “A neighbor (hereinafter referred to as the party of the first part) is to be construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within a radius of no more than three statute miles from one’s own legal residence unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter referred to as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part than one is oneself, in which case the party of the second part is to be construed as neighbor to the party of the first part and one is oneself relieved of all responsibility of any sort or kind whatsoever.”[2]

Jesus often meets people where they are.  But he rarely leaves them comfortably where they want to be.  Jesus wants to expand the lawyer’s horizon, and to that end he tells a story.

He says that a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was literally “going down,” for in the thirteen miles from Jerusalem to Jericho one descends nearly four-thousand feet in elevation. If you’ve visited Arizona, it’s a little bit like going down from Flagstaff to Phoenix. The desolate road to Jericho provided opportunities for the work of robbers.

As the story unfolds, the traveler is robbed and beaten.  Subsequently and in succession, a priest and then a Levite pass by without stopping to help.  Today, this would be like saying that a Presbyterian pastor and a session elder, who might be expected to bear a special responsibility, did nothing.  Finally, a Samaritan, who is a foreigner and enemy to the Jew, stops to apply medicine and bandages, takes the wounded traveler to shelter, cares for him, and pays for his expenses. 

The Samaritan’s virtuous course of action was personally costly.  He may have worried that the body on the lonely road was a trap set by robbers. He may have griped to God about the inconvenience. He may have thought about the people who were waiting for him at the end of his trip, and the apologies he would have to offer for being late and having less profit in his pouch than anticipated.  But he helped anyway.

When you reflect upon this story for a while, you begin to realize how outrageous it must have seemed to the Jewish lawyer that a despised Samaritan is the hero of Jesus’ tale.  Today, this would be like saying that a member Al Qaeda stopped to help a wounded American, or a Russian soldier carried a Ukrainian man to the hospital. It was a shocking thing for Jesus to say, and probably intended to get the lawyer to think in a new way about what it means to be a good neighbor.

The question the lawyer poses isn’t difficult to understand; in fact, I ask it (in my own words) somewhat regularly. Like you, I have limited resources: to how many organizations doing charitable work can I extend support? Like you, I have limited time and energy: how many people will I help? Beyond my family and the church, is my neighbor the family that lives three houses away? Is my neighbor the sad stranger I walk by in the hospital or nursing home hallway? When reaching out to include others within my circle of concern, just how far should I reach before it’s “enough”? The lawyer was “anxious to justify himself,” and, sometimes, so am I.

It's important to notice how Jesus answers the question. The story he tells leads to a reframing of the question. He doesn’t define a “neighbor” as the receiver of help.  Rather, he defines a “neighbor” as the giver of help.

Maybe it’s like what happened a little less than two miles from here, on a May morning, sixteen years ago. Don Cooper was driving his children to school at Columbus Elementary.  He was crossing the bike path on Marine Road near Schwarz Street.  As he looked both ways for bikes, he spotted what appeared to be someone lying down on the trail.[3]  People on the trail sometimes take a break and rest.  But something made Cooper drive by one more time.  He turned around and pulled into the trail.

That’s when Cooper discovered Melissa O’Connor lying on the ground.  Her six-month old son was crying near his mother in a tipped-over stroller.  Cooper found that O’Connor was not breathing and had no pulse. 

As Cooper began to dial 9-1-1, Officer John Arendell, on routine patrol, saw Cooper’s car and stopped.  Together they began CPR, and called for paramedics.  A defibrillator was used to restore a heartbeat, and O’Connor was transported to a hospital for treatment.

As best I can tell from an internet search, Melissa O’Connor is still living and working in the Edwardsville area, enjoying her family, making positive contributions to her community. This happy ending is possible only because of Don Cooper, someone we might describe as a modern-day “Good Samaritan.”

I’ve kept the clipping about Don Cooper and Melissa O’Connor as a great local reminder that being a Good Samaritan may not be as complicated as it seems. It starts with a commitment, born out of our faith, to love our neighbor. It requires building enough margin into our schedule that we have some spare time and energy to serve our neighbor. And it involves paying enough attention that we can spot a need when we meet it, and so be a neighbor. The Good Samaritan gives us a model. As Jesus said to the lawyer, let us “Go, and do likewise.”

NOTES
[1] Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, The Gospel According to Luke, Vol. 28 in the Anchor Bible, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981, p. 676.

[2] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1973, pp. 65-66.

[3] The following account is taken from “Man’s quick action saves woman’s life,” by Ann Niccum, Edwardsville.com: from the Edwardsville Intelligencer, 15 May 2007.

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