Luke 10:25-37

³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^[c]and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

The parable of the Good Samaritan has the strongest moral resonance of any story in the Bible. Hundreds of organizations are named Samaritan's Inn, Samaritan's Purse, or Samaritan Health Service to offer food, shelter, and care for people in need. But the story is more provocative than we often realize.

Parables, by design, make us uncomfortable. New Testament scholar Charles Dodd said that if you read a parable and you agree with it, you probably missed the point. Parables are a story bomb meant to challenge assumptions. For example, laborers in the vineyard come throughout the day and work different amounts of hours, yet they all get the same pay at the end of the day. The unfairness forces us to consider grace, divine generosity, and the reversal of worldly merit systems.

What is so provocative about the parable of the Good Samaritan when we all know we are supposed to stop and help a person in need? It can aggravate us in three ways, starting with the profound question, "Who is my neighbor? How far must my compassion reach?" It is also startling to see who walks by, the priest and the scribe, and who the hero of the story turns out to be.

The lawyer who debates with Jesus is the perfect foil for Jesus' parable. He asks, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" That is such a lawyer question! He doesn't ask how to get to heaven, or what makes for a good life, or the secret of life. He wants to know how to inherit heaven. Lawyers deal with inheritance, who gets the deceased's property, bank accounts, and rare coin collections? What must you do to inherit something? Usually, you need to be related, and the closer you are, the greater claim you have to the proceeds. What is the lawyer asking here? Does he want God to change their will? Is he trying to get a better place in line to affirm his right?

Like a good rabbi, Jesus answers the question with a question: "What is the greatest commandment in scripture?" This question is easy for a lawyer. Everyone with a bit of knowledge knows the great commandment, to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. It's a merger of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But the lawyer doesn't want the conventional answer, so he presses, "Who is my neighbor?"

You get the sense that the lawyer might be trying to prove how smart he is, or to trick Jesus with a difficult question, or he just likes to argue. He is the kind of guy who says, "Let me play the devil's advocate." OK fine, you be the devil! But it is actually a tricky question to answer.

Who do you consider your neighbor? How many blocks before they are not your neighbor? Do you stop at the city limit, the state line, or the national border? Does it stretch beyond human life to animals? Is a person's race, gender identity, or political affiliation a consideration for who is my neighbor? Does loving my neighbor mean I should send money every time I see an ad for Save the Children? Do I have to show my love for all six billion people currently sharing this planet? The lawyer would like a little advice. How about just friends and family? Or just Christians? Just Americans? Just patriotic Americans? How about I just pick my top 10, plus one person I don't like.

Jesus isn't about to get sucked into a legal debate with a lawyer, so he tells a story. A man lies beside the road after being beaten, robbed, and stripped. Thank God a priest comes along. Just kidding, he passes by. He doesn't investigate, but goes to the other side of the road. Same story when a Levite comes along. Why did they go to the other side of the road? If they came in contact with a dead body, they would be ritually impure and unable to perform their duties for a week. (Numbers 19:17-19). Jesus has made a devastating critique that law and ritual as more vital to them than mercy. Some people seem to think the great commandment is to be perfect. Stay pure to the letter of the law, and all will be well. Jesus critiques the false morality of the religious establishment, but here comes the lightning bolt.

Guess who comes to help? History helps us grasp the meaning of a Samaritan's status. Samaria was formerly the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which broke with Judea and the Davidic monarchy in 930 BCE. They started their own Temple and reportedly put a golden calf in it. There were nine centuries of violence and rivalry between the two states, much like the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland. They were siblings who hated each other.

You can change the characters depending on where you tell the story. In Boston, you would say a Yankees fan had mercy and saved the man. Two Evangelical pastors walked by, but a drag queen stopped and helped the man. Or it was a tired Mexican farm worker, even though he is fearful of getting involved in a legal investigation of a crime scene. Or two people with rainbow buttons and a “Free Palestine” button walk by and decry how the system has failed the man in the ditch, but the guy in a MAGA hat stops and helps. You get the idea. Whoever you put in the moral category as depraved is the hero, while your side failed in its stated moral obligation.

Jesus asks, "Who was a neighbor to this man?" It is so clear, even a lawyer could understand it—the one who showed mercy. Go and do likewise, Jesus says. I think he means more than simply helping a person who you see in trouble. Most suffering isn't out in the middle of the road. Jesus means an active mercy, one that might look at why there is so much crime on the Jericho road, or that has an adequate health care system when someone is injured, whether by robbers or on the job. A Good Samaritan pays attention to where there is prejudice or racism in society, and seeks to overcome unjust attitudes or laws. Instead of asking, "Who is my neighbor?" the Good Samaritan says, "You are my neighbor." Or perhaps, "Won't you be my neighbor?"

I conclude with a note from the world of jazz and our next song, "Isfahan." The Duke Ellington band performed this Billy Strahan song on a goodwill ambassador tour to the Middle East. Duke loved Iran and especially Isfahan, which he called a city of poets. The Jazz ambassadors were sent by a State Department program created by President Eisenhower. He believed that the Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union was partly a cultural battle, and wanted the US to be a force for liberty and justice for the whole world. But America's racial injustice was hurting our prestige and foreign policy. Eisenhower wanted to show we were making progress and send black jazz musicians around the world as goodwill ambassadors.

Jazz was immensely popular around the world, except that more authoritarian regimes had banned it. It is no surprise that Nazi Germany would ban non-white musicians, but the Soviet Union also banned what they called "decadent and degenerate" music. But even top Soviet officials smuggled in all the jazz records they could get. In 1957, Louis Armstrong was asked to tour the USSR, just as the school desegregation crisis hit in Little Rock, Arkansas. The governor ordered the National Guard to block nine black students' entry into the High School, creating a stand-off to integrate the school. To quote Armstrong directly, he told the State Department, "Hell, no. Not if this is how my people are treated." An official press release from the Voice of America said this showed the strength of freedom of speech in America, if a black man could criticize the government and not be arrested. As Wikipedia put it, "It was a weak hand well-played."

Many Jazz musicians used their music and voices to support civil rights activists, and as federal support increased, many musicians went overseas to share a message of hope and peace. And Duke Ellington came back from his travels with a cultural message of peace to an American audience, with music influenced by his time in Iran.

You can't be a neighbor if you never meet your neighbor. You must try their food and hear their music. Jazz shows us how to cross borders with curiosity and compassion. So does mercy.

Jesus said, "Go and do likewise." Let's pick up the rhythm.