The True Neighbor

This morning in my ladies’ Bible study group, we were going through the parable of the Good Samaritan – one of those stories that is so well-known, even in non-religious circles, that you think you know all there is to know about it.

But some details get lost in the shadow of others.

The author of the book, whom we were watching on video, described the perilous terrain in which the story takes place, as a man travels between Jerusalem and Jericho – “the perfect place to get mugged,” the author tells us. The Gospel of Luke says the man “fell in among robbers.”

When I think of a robber, I think of the stock cartoon character wearing a black-and-white striped shirt, dark pants, a wool cap pulled down over his ears, and a domino mask… carrying a bag slung over his shoulder to carry away his haul… and shouting, “This is a stick-up!” It implies a transaction conducted over a bank counter – at gunpoint, true, but with a polite understanding that each side has a role to play.

But to be mugged – that word captures the violence of the matter in a way that we in the modern era can comprehend.

In the countless times I’ve read this story, I’ve always focused on the fact that the man was physically assaulted: attacked, beaten, left for dead.

This morning, however, that word “mugged” leaped out at me. The very use of the word “robber” in Luke means that the man had been traveling with money. His attackers took his money, and his clothes, and then brutalized him.

When at last the Samaritan – the third person to pass by, and the only one to stop – found the man, he was half-dead, and his clothes and his money were gone. Even if the man had had the physical wherewithal to move, he had been left with no resources. Consider:

He had no cash.

He had no credit cards.

He had no health insurance.

This was a man who, we will learn, is going to need to be transported to safe quarters in lodging that is not his home, and who will require an extended time of recuperation.

In stopping when no one else would, the Samaritan saves the man’s life. He is a true neighbor because he shows mercy. But if we dig deeper, we discover that there were multiple components to this mercy. Consider:

He stopped to help a man who was Jewish – when Jews and Samaritans were like, well, the two main political parties in America today (read: sworn enemies).

He took his own oil and wine and used them to treat the man’s wounds.

He put the man on his own donkey, which presumably means that the Samaritan then had to walk.

He procured a room in an inn and stayed overnight with the man, not leaving him during the critical first hours of his recovery.

He paid the innkeeper to house and care for the man.

He promised to return.

There is so much selflessness and sacrifice in the Samaritan’s actions. He was willing not only to stop but to get involved – to step in and offer his resources to someone who had nothing.

The Samaritan was a true neighbor because:

He helped, unquestioningly, someone he had been taught to see as his enemy; and

He gave, unquestioningly, to someone who could offer him nothing in return.

It’s that second part that I’d never thought about till today.

#goodsamaritan #generosity