But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)
We note (in Luke 10:25-37) that Jesus is being asked to address this matter of neighborliness against the backdrop of his teaching persons to love God and to love each other. Neighborliness is to be understood within the context of love – ultimately the love that God has for each of us.
Jesus uses the story of what has come to be known as the Good Samaritan to teach those of his day and those who would hear this story even today, some “road rules.” The Jericho road was known to be a dangerous road – a winding and dark road - where it was not unusual for people to experience the type of violence that Jesus points to in the story of the Good Samaritan. Thus, we need to be reminded of road rules.
It seems that the times of Jesus were not much unlike ours. We are reminded of the arduous nature of the proverbial “roads of life” today.
It seems that we live in a time when “road etiquette” among us continues to deteriorate. Let’s take a look at the highways around us. For those of us who have the occasion to travel the roads of today, we know that roads can be dangerous and mean places. People seem to drive with a sense of heightened rage and angst, where it’s not unusual today, to turn on the news, and hear of another case of “road rage,” and violence on our highways.
Perhaps this type of rage is emblematic of our society in general, where a certain sense of meanness, and anger, and angst seems to have permeated much of our life together. I read in the newspaper not long ago, where violent crime in America is increasing for the second consecutive year. I also read where new prisons are being built in this region, and the prisons are at capacity even before construction on them is completed.
In the city of Baltimore, several communities have come to be known as “Blue Light” neighborhoods. These are some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, and at night one can see the constant blinking of blue lights overhead. These lights are a reminder of the crime and violence that has affected and often afflicted many of these communities, and the people who live in them and travel through them. These blue light neighborhoods are not unlike the Jericho road that Jesus was speaking about in scripture.
In talking about road rules, and what it means to be neighborly, Jesus offers the example of this certain unnamed man who was beaten, stripped and robbed, and left on the road to die. We are told that a priest and a Levite chose to pass this beaten man by on the other side of the road. We don’t know for sure, but perhaps they were late for important religious gatherings, and knew that to stop and care for this man would have made them late for their church gatherings.
And lest you and I hold these religious leaders of the Lord’s day in too much disdain, let us remind ourselves of the way people in need today are passed by in our churches and society. Racism and classism (and other “isms”) continue to afflict the church and society. AIDS and Malaria are killing many in the two thirds world. Crime and violence continues to permeate our streets. Poverty, hunger and the lack of adequate health-care continue to afflict many among us (over 40 million persons remain uninsured in America). If the truth is told, people are too often passed by on the roadsides of life today.
And so what are the road rules that we need to attend to today?
Martin Luther King helped us in a sermon preached at Riverside Church in New York in April 1967 (40 years ago):
"On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s road side; but that is only the initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
Philosopher Michael Eric Dyson points out that King believed that charity was a poor substitute for justice. Charity is a hit-or- miss proposition; people who tire of giving stop doing so when they think they’ve done enough. Justice seeks to take the distracting and fleeting emotions out of giving. Justice does not depend on felling to do the right thing. It depends on right action and sound thinking about the most helpful route to the best and most virtuous outcome. King understood, and embodied, this noble distinction. People who give money to the poor deserve praise; people who give their lives to the poor deserve honor.[i]
For Christians, our road rules must be rooted in true compassion. True compassion is always coupled with justice, and challenges each of us in the church and society towards what Martin Luther King called forms of “creative altruism.” This is altruism that makes concern for others the first law of life.
King indicated that Jesus revealed the meaning of this altruism in his parable here about the Good Samaritan who was moved by compassion to care for “a certain man” who had been robbed and beaten on the Jericho road.
King asserted that the altruism of the Samaritan was universal, dangerous and excessive. His altruism was universal since he did not seek to inquire into the nationality of the wounded man to determine whether he was a Samaritan or a Jew. He saw that he was “a certain man” in need, and that was sufficient for him to intervene.
The Samaritan was a good neighbor who demonstrated dangerous and excessive altruism because, unlike the priest and the Levite who passed by the wounded man, the Samaritan was willing to help any person in distress under any conditions, and he was able to look beyond external accidents to regard the stranger in need as his brother.
When we have true compassion we not only offer a handout, but we ask why people need a handout in the first place. True compassion not only offers help to the beggar, to the stripped and robbed among us, but questions the conditions that lead to poverty and violence on our streets.
Jesus here gave the command to love one’s neighbor, and through this parable Jesus disclosed his definition of neighbor. A neighbor is neither Jew nor Gentile; he is neither Russian nor American; he is neither black nor white nor Hispanic nor Asian. He or she is “a certain man or woman” – any needy person – on any of the numerous Jericho roads of life.
Perhaps, we can learn something from the Good Samaritan. Perhaps he sang as he lent a helping hand:
If I can help somebody as a travel along
If I can cheer somebody with a word or a song.
If I can help somebody as they’re living wrong
Then my living will not be in vain…
[i] Michael Eric Dyson, April 4, 1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How it Changed America (New York: Basic Book, 2008), p. 120.
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