An Unlikely Hero
Luke 10: 29 – 35, recommended reading.
What does the word “neighbor” mean to you? The definition for “neighbor” is a person living near or next door to the speaker or person referred to or a place or thing to be situated next to or very near another.
A lawyer ask Jesus in Luke 10: 29, “Who is my neighbor?” Luke 10: 29 says; “(29) But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?”
What he was trying to do was to restrict the term “neighbor” to make it easier to keep God’s law. So Jesus answered him by telling a story beginning in verse 30 which says; “(30) A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fellamong thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed leaving him for dead.” This story is not so much about the victim as it is about the people who walked by the victim and did nothing to help.
“(31) And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.” We do not know what the priest’s motivation was, it does not tells us in the story, but it may have been that he just finished his tour of duty at the temple and he was ready to get home and rest.
Maybe in too big of a hurry. Or he could have been thinking, “I spent too many years in seminary to be a priest, not a doctor. That’s not my calling, let someone else worry about him.” Or it could have been as he looked back down the road he saw the Levite coming, and said; “Here come’s someone, I’ll let him handle the taking care of this man, I got more important things to do today.”
“(32) And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.” So here’s another guy who says, “I don’t have time for this, I got to go.” But then Jesus told the audience who the real hero of the story realty was.
“(33) But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him he had compassion on him.”
This Samaritan felt sorry for the hurt man and wanted to help him. Now this would have been unthinkable to Jesus’s audience.
People would say things like: “A good Samaritan? There is no such thing as a good Samaritan.
What you have to understand here is the Samaritans origin to understand the Jews attitude toward them. You see the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other. Most Jews would not travel through Samaria. They would travel a longer round, about route to avoid Samaria and avoid any contact with the Samaritans.
Seven hundred years earlier, Assyria invaded the northern kingdom of Israel, and they planted some of their people in the capital, which was Samaria. The Assyrians began to intermingling with the Jews, and our of their union came the feeling that something was unworthy, or lack of respect or contempt. The full – blooded Jew threated the Samaritans this way because they were the result of Israelites who were literally sleeping with the enemy.
However, look at what this Samaritan did with the man who was left for dead on the side of the road.“(34) And he went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to and inn, and took care of him” Back then they didn’t have Johnson and Johnson bandages or Neosporin, so the only way he could bind up this man’s wounds was probably to tear his own garments into strips and wrap the wounds with that. Then he brought him to an inn and the next day took two denarii (about two day’s wages and gave it to the innkeeper and said this to him.
“(35) And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him. Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come, I will repay thee.”
The moral of this story is this. The two religious leaders, the priest and the Levite who walked by were representative of the lawyer’s attitude. What they did was they restricted the meaning of the word “neighbor” so that they could meet the standard of the law. But the Samaritan refused to restrict the meaning of “neighbor.” He had feeling for his neighbor, a man unknown to him, a stranger, yet he cared.
What about you? Do you care about your neighbor, or do you even know your neighbor?