Imagine with me for a moment that you have just woken up in a hospital. You have no recollection of what has happened to you, but the doctors and nurses tell you that you were assaulted, beaten, and robbed of all your possessions. It’s a good thing that they brought you when they did, the doctors tell you, because you would not have made it through the night except for the quick thinking of the person who dropped you off. Apparently, you’ve been in a coma for almost a month, and with you waking up today, the doctor’s are confident that you will be able to go home in about two weeks.
As you lay there, you realize the doctors are talking about six full weeks in the hospital. And then you get afraid, because, after all, you know that it can be about $3000 per night at the hospital… and you don’t have that kind of money. Sure, you’ve got the “Good Neighbor” Insurance plan, but you don’t know if you are in the right neighborhood. What if this is the wrong neighborhood? What if these people aren’t your neighbors? Will the insurance plan still work?
But then you glance over at the board in your room that the doctors and nurses use to keep each other up to date, and you realize that you are at a “Good Samaritan” hospital. “At least that’s something,” you think, “maybe they’ll be inclined to help me out in some way, since I’m not rich. And, after all, they know that I just got robbed.”
When the doctor comes into your room next, you ask them, “Look, I don’t have a lot of money. And… I know it’s not cheap to be in the hospital this long. Does this hospital have any kind of payment assistance program?”
“Oh!,” the doctor exclaims, “You don’t need to worry about that. Your bill has been taken care of 100%!”
“It has!” you almost shout, completely surprised. “How? What? Who?”
“Yes, it was completely paid for by … “ The doctor shuffles some papers on their clipboard, and says the name … of the person you hate the most. In this life, and in the next. For this person, you have more than enough hate to last a few lifetimes…
“What are they up to now?” you wonder. Rather than being overjoyed at not having to pay anything for your hospital stay, you begin to question this person’s motives. “I bet they’re trying to manipulate me into something. Or, maybe they’re just trying to rub it in that I’m not as wealthy as they are. Maybe it’s a photo-op for the newspaper so that they’ll look good running for public office. Honestly, knowing them, it can’t be anything good.”
I know that whenever we hear the story of the Good Samaritan, we often focus on the lack of compassion by the priest or the Levite – two people who are supposed to care for others. Instead, these two, in the story, end up neglecting a dying man, a man who had just been beaten and robbed, and left for dead. The only person that did anything at all was the Samaritan, who, as the scripture tells us, “was moved with pity.” And so, we often like to focus on the compassion and empathy that this Samaritan had for this badly beaten person laying on the road.
Remember, the Israelites and the Samaritans both claimed to worship the same God, and both used much of the same scripture, and both had built a temple to worship the same God. But they worshiped in different ways, were descended, in part, from other people, and the Israelites considered the Samaritans as “impure.” And so, the two hated each other.
Jesus very deliberately uses the character of a Samaritan in this parable, because, only a few weeks before, Jesus had preached that people are to love their enemies. And here, as the lawyer hearing the parable is starting to empathize with the man who has been beaten by robbers, and is laying on the side of the road, Jesus suddenly throws him for a loop, and makes the person who “is moved with pity” one of the people that this lawyer would hate the most. For this lifetime, and the next.
As I mentioned before, we like to look at the Priest and the Levite, because they are easy targets. We hear how they behaved, and we say, “What a bunch of selfish jerks!” We are prompted, maybe, to think of all the times that we have been selfish, and not so generous with our time or money, or ignored the suffering of others. Or, we are prompted to think of ways that we can help out others more, and think of our own desires less. Ways in which we might be less selfish and a bit more conscientious.
Or, we like to look at the work of the Samaritan, the only one moved with pity in the story, and we are prompted to think of all the ways in which we have done good, and ways in which we have helped out those less fortunate. We ask ourselves if we could have done more than we have done – if we could have been more generous. And, sometimes, we are prompted to ask ourselves if maybe – just maybe – we could have done it without documenting our “good deed” for the rest of the world to see on social media.
Both of those things are commendable. And both of them will help us to improve our lives, and the lives of those in our community, because we may be prompted to behave more lovingly. But they do not get at the root of the problem.
The passage of scripture begins with, “a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.” Why was he testing Jesus? Because at this point in Jesus’ ministry, he has already ticked off enough people and pointed out their desire to seek power at the expense of others, to live lives of ease and luxury completely unconcerned while others barely made it, to happily and greedily try to amass more and more for themselves, while not helping the poor and needy.
And this lawyer wanted to see if he could get Jesus to fumble his teaching, and say something contrary to the Law, so that he could be handed over to those in power. Handed over and tortured, maybe. Thrown in prison maybe. But in any case – force him to stop preaching things that caused heartburn for those in power.
And Jesus asks this lawyer, “What have you learned from scripture about inheriting eternal life?”
And the lawyer says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus commends him for knowing the truth. This guy could have stopped there, but then the lawyer asks, “And who is my neighbor?” To which Jesus responds with this parable about the Samaritan who cares for an enemy. And yet, an enemy that “moves [the Samaritan] to pity” because the man who has been beaten is suffering.
Jesus is defying this lawyer to question the motives of the Samaritan in this parable. To ascribe anything other than love and compassion to the Samaritan.
Why, you ask? Because, as the scripture tells us, that the lawyer was “wanting to justify himself.”
The definition of the word “justify,” is “to show, or prove to be right.” That is, this lawyer wanted to show or prove that he was right. And what was he trying to prove that he was right in?
Let’s face it, if you are asking “who is my neighbor,” then what you are really asking is, “who am I allowed to hate?”
This is what the lawyer was really trying to justify – his hatred for others. His desire to scapegoat some people into being the root cause of all evil in this world. His desire to attribute evil motives to those doing good. His desire to forget about helping the poor and needy, the broken and frail, simply because they are not like him, and therefore not worthy of his trust.
We like to focus on the Priest and the Levite – as examples of how not to behave. And we like to focus on the Samaritan as an example of how we should behave. But we never like to consider that we are like the Lawyer – the one who attempted to test Jesus, and who attempted to justify his hatred for his neighbors in front of the very man who was preaching peace and mercy.
This lawyer – he knew that the scripture said that he was to love his neighbor as himself, but he wanted to define who his neighbor was. But, Jesus reminds him, your neighbor is anyone who is not looking back at you in the mirror. Your neighbor is anyone who is not you.
And you love your neighbor as yourself.
Let’s be honest. That’s kind of a hard pill to swallow though, isn’t it? I know I have some people that I would very much like to ignore, and leave on the side of the road, slowly dying. I’m not proud of that fact, but I can admit that there are times where I just don’t like some people, and I wish them the worst.
And that’s the real crux of this story. That is the point that Jesus is trying to get this lawyer to understand. He wants the lawyer to examine every thought, and decide how to react. We need to catch ourselves before our questions lead us down the wrong path. The path that says that we can determine who we are allowed to love, and who we are allowed to hate. The path that says that we can determine who our neighbors are, and who is deserving of our love and mercy. Or, more to the point, the path that says that we can determine who is deserving of the lover and mercy of God.
They all are. Everyone is deserving of the love and mercy of God.
Even that jerk who paid off our hospital bill to prove that they are better than us.
“Who do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
“The one who showed him mercy.”
“Go and do likewise.”
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on July 13, 2025.]
