The Compassionate Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37

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Level 4

by Rev. Norman Prenger

STATEMENT FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

This parable of Jesus is a response to questions concerning the proper observation of the Law in order to inherit eternal life. They are posed by someone who is “an expert”, perhaps a Pharisaic rabbi, or a priest, just as Jesus saw himself as an expert in the Law. Discussions between experts on how to interpret the Torah were often heated and competitive. What might seem to be an innocent, heartfelt request for clarity could also be a mask for ambush, as Jesus often experienced in his ministry.

In this case, the expert is not satisfied with Jesus’ straightforward replies. He requests more specificity “because he wanted to justify himself” (v. 30). Somehow Jesus’ affirmation “you have answered correctly” wasn’t what the expert wanted to hear. Now the question is a more direct interrogation, getting at the expert’s true motives. We have to assume the parable is our Lord responding to those motives.

“Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus takes his cue from the love that is owed to our neighbors. His parable depicts five neighbors in various amounts of detail. Two are default neighbors. Two are false. One is true.

The first is a man, presumably a Jew, who is waylaid by robbers while he was on the road to Jericho. He is left bleeding, nude, and senseless by the side of the road. He is in a position very much like the indebted slaves we saw in the first parable we took up — helpless, prone, a victim of violent criminals as well as his foolish decision to travel that dangerous road alone. By virtue of his situation, this victim is a neighbor by default.

The second neighbor, a priest serving in the Jerusalem temple, sees the beaten and bleeding man on the roadside and decides to pass him by. The priestly order of ancient Israel exists to mediate God’s blessings and Israel’s needs. They perform the cultic functions of prayers and sacrifice on behalf of the people and were required to keep themselves ritually clean beyond the standards expected of ordinary Jews. Priests were also called to minister to the quasi-medical needs of Israel – they were responsible for the diagnosis, treatment, quarantine, and purification of various ailments. Despite evidence that the victim is a naked Jew, perhaps because he is naked, the priest walks past. Peering at nakedness is immoral in Jewish thinking. Despite the victim’s obvious injuries, perhaps because of ritual filth of blood and injury — that is despite his qualifications as a priest, or because of them, he is not a true neighbor at all. He is a false neighbor.

The same is true of the Levite, a member of the priestly tribe who might be exempt from the ritual requirements of a priest but still obligated to assist his fellow Jew. He passes by the victim as well, though he might be able to comfort the injured man in a way in which a priest might not due to the risk ritual contamination. However, all Jews were to avoid touching the dead. Only close family could touch the dead. To examine a man unconscious beside the road would put himself and his family at risk of censor and quarantine. He is heading to Jericho and not on a return journey to Jerusalem. Robbers could be close by. Besides, the victim is naked. The Levite calculates the cost to benefit equation and decides to keep walking. His decision to walk proves he is a false neighbor.

The third candidate is a Samaritan. There couldn’t be a more appalling character to be featured in this story in the eyes of Jewish expert on Torah. For the Jews in Jesus day, Samaritans are counted as traitors, heretics, half-breeds, and unclean squatters in Jewish territory. They are a threat to Jewish racial purity despite their claim to be descendants of Joseph’s line and for many generations living in close proximity to Judah’s descendants. The Samaritan had likely been heading home along that road whereas the previous persons were likely travelling in the opposite direction.

What this Samaritan does for this severely injured man is very well known for people familiar with this carefully crafted story. His actions are many, piling up kindness upon kindness. He actually approaches the victim. He touches the man despite the threat of touching the dead and trespassing on the duties of the man’s Jewish family. He bandages the man and pours oil and wine on the wounds as medicine. He sets the man on a donkey and brings him to an inn, paying for his keep with the promise to return to cover any other expenses. Considering the briefness of the story, the length to which Jesus spells out the man’s actions is remarkable and intentional. The Samaritan proves to be a true neighbor.

Yet another candidate to being a neighbor is the person understood to be the innkeeper. This person says nothing but plays a part in the compassionate care given to the robbery victim. However, the care is paid for by money and under a contract with the Samaritan. The innkeeper may have been agreeable and faithful in providing services but his neighborliness is default one, paid for by the Samaritan.

The key to this Samaritan’s activated kindness and generosity — the key to the riddle of “who is my neighbor” — is compassion (verse33). The same word used in this verse is the very same word used in first parable we looked at, σπλαγχνισθεὶς. The Samaritan looked at the helpless estate of the robbery victim, nude and bleeding, and he had felt sympathy deep in his gut often accompanied by a facial grimace or trembling of his lips. This parable envisions it as a deep passion, initiated by empathy and courage, to identify with the suffering of others and to help alleviate it.

Once again, the kindness and extravagance of the Samaritan, despite the barriers of ethnicity and deep religious animosities, demonstrates itself through compassion. If the Law can be summarized by whole hearted love for God and love from the heart towards neighbor, then the moral exercise of compassion is the key to life to be lived in this life as well as the next.

The legal expert must admit that of all the candidates for being a neighbor in Jesus’ story, it is not default neighbors nor the false neighbors but the compassionate Samaritan who is his true neighbor and the correct exemplar of obedience under the Torah’s moral laws.

In my discussions with brothers who claim to be experts in the gospel of Jesus Christ, I find a Samaritan’s sort of compassion completely absent for homosexuals sidelined from our communion and denied the solace of companionship, fidelity, and protection observed in a marriage covenant. They are content to walk by. They use the word compassion flippantly but never moved by empathy or their own experience of mercy. They are not ready to do what it takes to bring relief and comfort to people in pain, a pain that is even not their own fault. In fact, they treat homosexuals just the same way that the Jews once treated Samaritans. People who are unclean and deserving of eviction from the fellowship.

For homosexuals in the church the result has been loneliness and restrictions which no heterosexual would tolerate. There is no sense that their pain has been heard, no obvious courage to come alongside of them, no readiness to help in ways that might assuage their pain and alienation. They claim to be experts in morality, seeking to justify themselves with harsh condemnations, threats of division, excommunication, and even hell. They force people like myself to choose between the supposed immorality of same sex marriage and the clear immorality of refusing to be compassionate.

This parable shows the law of love requires extravagant forms of compassion for it to be practiced to perfection, now and for eternity.

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RESPONSE

The response given below is the same as that given for the paper on The Servant Who Was Shown Compassion.

The church must certainly show compassion toward those who deal with same-sex attraction. The Christian message is one of patience, mercy, caring, and long-suffering. This has long been manifested e.g., by a number of hospitals that have been founded by churches. There are accounts of parents kicking their teenage son out of the home because he is same-sex attracted. How can that be a good thing to do? The current report to the CRC Synod of 2021 has a good number of references to the compassion Christians must show. In keeping a balance, the church must also know what God’s will is with respect to acts that people commit.

The purpose of these webpages, and this paper as well, is to determine if same-sex erotic acts are in some cases pleasing to God. In striving to determine whether an act is moral or immoral, how can it be beneficial to turn to peoples’ reactions to that act? I dare say it is true that some in the church respond to those attracted to members of the same sex the wrong way. Some respond in a very wrong way. But what light does that shed on same-sex erotic acts? It is not possible for the matter of compassion to ultimately shed light on the question of whether or not the Bible prohibits all same-sex erotic acts.

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