A priest, a minister and a rabbi are trying to decide how much to give to charity. So the priest says, we’ll draw a circle on the ground, we’ll throw the money way up in the air and whatever lands inside the circle, we give to charity. The minister says “no”, we’ll draw a circle on the ground, throw the money way up in the air and whatever lands outside, that’s what we give to charity. The rabbi says “no, no, no”, we’ll throw the money way up in the air and whatever God wants, He can keep. Jokes with a priest, minister and rabbi are a staple on the comedy circuit so much so that you can even play with the trope. A priest, minister and rabbit walk into a blood bank and the rabbit blurts out “I’m a type-O.” [Get it: typo.] Comedy Central: Jerusalem had similar jokes with the line “a priest, levite and Israelite were going down the road to Jericho.” Jesus plays with what must have been for his hearers a familiar trope by saying, “a priest, levite and a Samaritan were going down the road.” Substituting “Samaritan” for “Israelite” would have been even more shocking that swapping rabbit for rabbi. The Samaritans were the bad guys, the black hats, the foreigners, the enemy. Maybe the equivalent for us would be: “A priest, minister and Vladimir Putin were going down the road.” Makes you sit up and take notice — just as the parable Jesus told did.
The contrast Jesus is setting up: the priest and the levite when they see the battered and bruised crime victim ask themselves, “What will happen to me if I help him.” The Samaritan asks, “What will happen to him if I don’t help him?” It is that willingness to see things from the other persons’ point of view that proved the difference in the response. When Jesus tells the scholar who posed the question “what shall I do” to “Go and do likewise” he is saying, it’s not about you; Go and notice what others are going through. Parents do this instinctively. At the recent shooting in Highland Park parents did not run off by themselves once the shooting started. They grabbed their children and did all they could to protect them. For parents, what my child is going through mattered more than what I am going through. My child belongs to me and what happens to my child happens to me. Having a Samaritan, the enemy, the other guy, the nemesis as the hero of the story dramatizes the expansive vision Jesus has about who belongs to whom. There isn’t anyone out there who we are not connected to. What happens to anyone happens to me. Everyone out there who is hurting matters to me because we are all part of the family of God
In Jesus’ story the priest and levite were asking the wrong question. Instead of asking “What will happen to me if I help him” they should have been asking “What will happen to me if I don’t help him.” By not helping they were cutting themselves off from an essential part of their humanity, their very identity as children of God. Dividing the world up into “us” and “them” runs clean counter to how God made the world. St. Paul says that because Jesus is our elder brother, born as one of us, we are all connected. As he puts it in the epistle to the Colossians: “In him were created all things in heaven and on earth; all things were created through him and for him… and in him all things hold together.” The story of the Good Samaritan is not so much about being “a good Samaritan,” helping someone in need. It’s about being a new kind of person who, because they are a child of God, cares about the other children of God.
So maybe the one asking the wrong question was not the priest and levite in the parable. Maybe the scholar of the law posed the wrong question to Jesus right from the get-go. Instead of asking “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” he should have asked, “Who must I become?” If we worry about what we are going to do we can create a check list. Keep the commandments, check. Say my prayers, check. Go to church, check. Donate to charity, check. The problem with the check list is that it ultimately is not enough. The scholar had all the boxes checked but he didn’t feel that connection with God that he hoped for. A few chapters later in St. Luke we’ll hear the story of the rich young man who asks the same question, “What must I do?” because despite a full check list, he is equally unsatisfied that he is right with God. What Jesus wants us to understand is that there isn’t any check list, there isn’t a list of any kind of things we have to do. God showers graces and blessings upon us because of who we are, not because of what we do. Give up trying to make something of yourself and simply feel how blessed you are just as you are, made in God’s image and likeness.
The lesson of the good Samaritan, therefore, should not necessarily cause us to go out there and find someone in need and take care of them. We are like the Good Samaritan not so much in an act of charity but whenever we create a bond, a connection with others. We are a Good Samaritan by greeting someone we don’t know when they come into church and make them feel welcome. We are a Good Samaritan when we come to appreciate the culture and experiences of someone who doesn’t look like me or talk like me. We are a Good Samaritan when we understand that the resources I use impact the common home of planet earth that we share with others. We are a Good Samaritan whenever we understand that there isn’t anyone who is not brother and sister and mother to me.
