A Priest, A Levite and a Samaritan Walk Down the Jericho Road
Being floored by the one who doesn't belong
“Good Samaritan” by Ferdinand Hodler, 1853-1918
A Priest, A Levite and A Samaritan Walk Down the Jericho Road
Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church
On September 25th, 2022
Scripture: Luke 10:25-37
Finally we get to the parable. These past few weeks we have been taking a deep dive into the story of a lawyer who asks Jesus a testy question. We’ve heard how the lawyer comes with a question about eternal life that isn’t really the question he wants answered. And we heard about how Jesus leads the lawyer to understand that he already knows the answer. He already knows “what he must do.” Last week, we reflected on the ways in which we need to ask provocative questions and open ourselves to a wider vision of God, if we are to learn and grow.
Now, this week, we realize that our assumptions and our worldview must also be challenged, if there is to be growth. And, fortunately, that is exactly what a parable is supposed to do: challenge us.
I recently heard a sermon in which the preacher talked about parables. She said “If a parable doesn’t make you laugh, make you mad, or make you confused, you are not really paying attention.” A parable is either surprising, offensive or incongruous. Depending on our mood, our situation, and our relationship to the subject the parable will makes us laugh, rage, or shake our heads in confusion.
But there is a problem for us with the parable at the center of the story we are reading in this season. There is no element of surprise because we already know if so well. The story is known throughout the world, and has been known for centuries as the “Parable of the Good Samaritan.” Add to that, the name “Good Samaritan” has been stripped from the title, and applied in all sorts of places. The “Good Samaritan Hospital”, the “Good Samaritan Law”, even “The Samaritans” – people offering a lifeline to those are considering taking their own life.
OK, we get it, Samaritans are good and kind, right? They help, they heal, they care for hurt people. And so, we assume that the lawyer – who was the first to hear the parable – is surprised by the one who showed mercy because he has some kind of prejudice against Samaritans.
We neatly wrap up the parable by telling ourselves that we need to check our prejudices. Perhaps we think ill of illegal immigrants, but then it turns out that many of them are kind and compassionate. Maybe we harbor racist or homophobic biases and so we need a story to tell us how merciful people of different races and sexual orientations can be.
Only, that’s not how it is.
Let’s revisit the story for a moment.
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho”
This man was traveling the long rough path through the wilderness descending from the heights of Jerusalem into the city of Jericho, three and a half thousand feet below. The Jewish hearers of the story know that this road has a reputation for danger. There are bandits, hidden in the rocks and brush above, waiting to ambush vulnerable travelers.
No surprises then, that “[the man] fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.”
“Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.” Neither the Priest nor the Levite – people with religious duties, who we might expect to help. Neither of them stop to help the man.
“But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' “
A Samaritan was the one who took pity on the half-dead, bleeding and naked man. He did all that was needed and more, to see that the man was taken care of. The Samaritan went above and beyond the call of duty.
Only, it is a Samaritan. Samaritans are the enemy, with a capital E, of the Jewish people. They are historic enemies and this fact is baked into the story of Israel.
Hebrew scriptures (our Old Testament) recall when Samaria was called Schechem, the men of Schechem raped Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. And later the King Abimelech, murdered his rivals. Amy-Jill Levine, Jewish scholar of the New Testament, says that for the “Jewish audience, the idea of a ‘good Samaritan’ would make no more sense that the idea of a ‘good rapist’ or a ‘good murderer.’” [1]
John’s gospel also attests to the enmity between the Jewish people and the Samaritans. John tells us that Jesus stops in Samaria while traveling and asks a woman to draw water from a well for him. The woman replies “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” John adds, in paratheses “for Jews do not associate with Samaritans.”
And here we have the crux of the parable: “a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan” come down the Jericho Road. This is why the story sounds absurd, surprising and incongruent to Jesus’s audience. Levine, draws attention to “the rule of three.” As in the first line of too many old jokes: “An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman … walked into a bar.” Or “the Queen, the Pope and the President” were in an airplane with only one parachute.
The rule of three says that each member of the trio has something in common with the others. Maybe the joke is on one of them, but they all go together. Levine says that when one is missing, anyone can complete the trio, think “Father, Son and …” or if you remember the Three Stooges “Larry, Moe and …” [2]
In this parable Jesus turns the rule on its head. Levine goes on “The audience, surprised by [the] lack of compassion [of the priest and the Levite], would have presumed that the third person who be an Israelite and that he would help.” Instead Jesus completes the trio: “There was a Priest, a Levite and a Samaritan” Levine says “This would be like going from Larry and Moe to Osama bin Laden.”
The enemy, bin Laden, is the one who showed mercy. And so, having heard this, the lawyer who posed the question is floored.
Growing up in England in the 1970’s and 80’s, terrorist attacks committed by the Irish Republican Army (the IRA) seemed to be a regular feature of the nightly news.
Recently I wondered if I was remembering this correctly, and so I looked up some of the history. It turns out that during the 1970’s there were twenty IRA terror attacks and seven of them took place during 1974. [3]
Not quite nightly, but an average of two per year. These attacks took place around the country - not only in London - striking what were known as “soft targets”: civilians, adults and children going about their business. There were also many more bomb threats that turned out to be hoaxes. And, of course, the nightly news also featured many stories of bomb blasts and clashes in Northern Ireland.
This was a backdrop to my childhood, mostly I did not live in fear. But my family had no interest in visiting Ireland, especially Northern Ireland. Places such as Belfast and Derry (then known as Londonderry) were scary sounding places. Something like Kabul, Tehran, or the Ukrainian cities under attack, sound today. And, through the media and the general attitudes of the people around me, I was very clear, the enemy was the IRA.
Certain triggers would come back to me later in life. When my husband and I moved to Boston, we heard stories of the upcoming St Patrick’s Day parade. Memories of violent sectarian clashes in Northern Ireland came to mind. St Patrick’s Day sounded like a day to lie low to me. You would have laughed at my surprised when the “everyone’s Irish on St Patrick’s Day” came around and my co-workers expected me to participate in the celebrations.
Still, it was some years later that I met a kind young woman who was my co-worker and also a member of a UCC church. Despite our age difference, Siobhan and I formed a bond: we were both immigrants. She had been brough to the USA from Ireland as a child and I had come, later in life, from England. On lunch breaks we would sometimes head out of the office together for a proper cup of tea. Siobhan would recommend to me some of the hipster spots she and her wife liked to frequent and I’d pretend that I would try them. She talked about visiting her Irish family and how they embraced her young wife but couldn’t even talk about the fact that she was now a Protestant.
This seemed like a normal friendship until one day, Siobhan casually mentioned, “I grew up in an IRA safe house near the border (between Northern and Southern Ireland).” And I was floored. Because this meant that Siobhan’s dad and uncles and maybe her grandad and grandad’s friends as well were all IRA. I had just stepped into my own parable.
We might want to end the study of the parable we heard today with the last verse from our passage “go and do likewise.” Ironically, we’d rather hear the “should’s” and “ought’s” of the story, than challenge our deep-held assumptions. We just want to get on with living “a good Christian life.”
But, no, we’re not going to do that today. We’re going to let the parable sit and stew and do its work in us.
Which is it? Are you amused, or offended, or confused?
If you are feeling any of these things, then you are paying attention. And that is my hope for today.
And so may all God’s people be floored by the parable, and say,
Amen
[1] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 96
[2] Ibid., 94-95
[3] https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/irish-republican-army