You will remember that the Ten Commandments teach us two main things: our duty to God and our duty to our neighbour.  You will, perhaps, ask, “And who is my neighbour?”  Well, that is the very question that a Jew asked Jesus.  Now Jesus very rarely gave a direct answer to a direct question.  He liked to help people think out the answer for themselves, and so, on this occasion, he told the man a story, the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

Attack by bandits

A certain man was travelling along the lonely road which runs east from Jerusalem to Jericho.  The distance is about 20 miles and by the time the road reaches Jericho in the Jordan Valley it has dropped down some 3,500 feet.  For almost the whole of its length the country on either side is wild and mountainous, the Wilderness of Judea, full of caves and cliffs and ravines, just the place where bandits could lie in wait for a victim.  And so they saw the lone traveller before he saw them.  The first he knew about it was when the bandits came for him from behind the rocks.  They clubbed him to the ground, stripped him of everything he had, even his clothes, and departed leaving him half dead, lying in the dust at the side of the road.

Priest passed by on the other side

Soon another traveller came into sight along the road.  He was a priest who had just finished his spell of duty at the Temple in Jerusalem, and was now hurrying to get home and back to his business again.  And then he saw the still figure lying by the roadside.  He could not tell whether the man was alive or dead.  To find that out he would have to feel him and see if his heart was still beating.  But if he was dead, that would make things very difficult for the priest because, according to the Jewish Law, if you touched a dead body you became unclean, as they called it.  And that meant he would have to be isolated from everyone for seven days.

He had already been away from home for a week, and he did not want to be away for another week.  He looked back along the road, and was very glad to see someone else coming.  So, instead of attending to the wounded man himself, he left that to the newcomer.  And just in case the man was dead, he gave him a wide berth and passed by on the other side, and was soon hurrying away from the scene before the bandits reappeared.  You and I would probably have done the same.

Levite passed by on the other side

The newcomer was a Levite, a server at the Temple.  He too was on his way home after completing his spell of duty.  And he found himself faced with the same problem.  He stopped and looked at the figure on the ground, but could not tell whether he was alive or not.  Should he take the risk of feeling the man to find out, and then perhaps have to be isolated for the next seven days?  So he too looked back along the road, and was very relieved to see a man coming along with a donkey.  Nothing could be better.  He could see by the man’s dress that he was a Samaritan, and Samaritans did not keep the Jewish Law so it would make no difference to him if he touched a dead body.  And of course, if the bandit’s victim was alive, the donkey could take him to the inn some miles down the road.  And so the Levite who, like the priest before him was quite a good man, did what you and I would have done – he passed by on the other side.

Samaritan cared for the injured man

When the Samaritan reached the spot, he stopped, felt the man’s heart, and found that he was still alive.  So, after giving him first aid and binding up his wounds, he put him on his donkey and took him to the inn.  There the Samaritan looked after him, and the next day, when he left, he gave the innkeeper some money, saying, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend” (NRSV, Luke 10:35).

Our neighbour

When Jesus had finished the parable, he turned to his questioner and asked, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  The man, like all the Jews, disliked the Samaritans and so could not bring himself to say “The Samaritan”.  Instead he said, “The one who showed him mercy”.  Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise” (NRSV, Luke 10:36,37).

From this we see that our neighbour is anyone to whom we have the opportunity of doing good, and we have no excuse for not doing it in the hope that someone else will do it instead.  We must do our duty to our neighbour ourselves and not leave it to other people to do it for us.

SUMMARY

Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan in order to teach us that our neighbour is anyone to whom we have the opportunity of doing good, and we have no excuse for not doing it in the hope that someone else will do it for us.