The Village

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 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.

The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, "Look after him and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense that you may have."

Interesting story.



A man traveling down a road is stripped to bare nakedness and left half dead.

Not all the way dead.

Half dead.

A detail that is incredibly important.

Two different people are walking this same road and as they draw close, they see the unidentifiable half dead person and continue walking as they "pass by" him. And as Jesus tells this story, he makes sure not to just leave this as two random people with no particular identity. Jesus specifically decides to tell us that one of the passerby's is a priest and one is a Levite.

Now, Jesus would have had a plethora of titles to choose from to describe a person in this society. Just within Judaism alone at this time there were somewhere around twenty different sects. So when Jesus specifically tells us they are a priest and a Levite, this is very intentional because he could have chosen from a vast array of characters. So why do he choose these two?

It comes down to the specific view of Torah that these two sects held.

If you have ever read the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, you would know that it is a bit complex. Most people, when they think of the Bible, have this vision of a fact book or encyclopedia that you just look stuff up in. But that just isn't the case. Not everything is spelled out clearly and easy to understand. It is messy and ambiguous and confusing and often leaves room for a whole lot of interpretation.

Take a command like the Sabbath.

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."

On first glance, this seems straightforward. But, really, it just raises all sorts of questions. Like how do you "remember" a day? What is involved in this sort of process? And how do you keep a day holy? Why does it need in order to be kept holy? What exactly constitutes as a "Sabbath" anyway?

Just lots of questions.

And you can do this with pretty much any part of any writing in the Torah.

So, as a result, the Jewish people started developing a lot of commentary to help work out what the Torah was getting at. All of these different explanations began to arise on how to actually live out things like, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."

Eventually, it was this that became known as the Oral Torah.

"Oral" because it was never actually written down. Which is quite impressive noting that it is multiple times bigger than the Hebrew Bible itself.

So you had Torah that was written and then you had the Oral Torah.

And the interesting thing about the two groups that Jesus uses in this story is that they both rejected the Oral Torah. They only adhered to the Torah that was in writing. Which makes sense in light of the story of the half dead man laying by the side of the road.

In Leviticus 21, part of the written Torah, it says this:

"Adonai said to Moses, 'Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: 'A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean for any of his people who die, except a close relative, such as his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother, or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband - for her he may make himself unclean.'"

This is a big issue. Because the priests and the Levites, the ones depicted as passing by in the story, they have to run the Temple. The life and substance of the community of Israel was in their hands.

The problem is that if you are unclean, you can't go into the Temple. And there are all sorts of things that make you unclean that offer all sorts of insight that we could all learn a little more from because they are more than just petty rules that have to be followed. They are the very regulation of how this particular community is supposed to work. But the point here is that part of this uncleanness could come from touching a dead person.

And if a priest or a Levite is unclean, then they won't be able to officiate in the Temple.

The very movement and life of the Temple and of Israel would be affected if either of these two were unclean.

The problem is that we typically read this parable and we think that these two people are just being stuck up religious elites that won't help the poor man who is dying on the side of the road. What kind of selfish inhuman would just walk past someone vulnerably losing their life in their midst.

But we forget that Jesus makes a very clear point that the guy is half dead.

Meaning that the priest and the Levite don't know whether or not this guy is alive or not. And the whole Leviticus understanding of being made unclean by a dead person was that even their shadow could make you unclean. So the priest and the Levite are walking by and they see this guy that looks like he might be dead, but they can't confirm it. Because if they even walk up to him, they will be unclean. The man's half dead appearance keeps them from even seeing if there is anything they could do.

They aren't being stuck up or evil. They just know that if they take the chance to do something, there is a good possibility that they will end up unclean. Meaning that the whole people of Israel would be affected.

So they keep on walking.

And this is why Jesus uses the characters of a priest and a Levite. He could have used some other sect, particularly one that adhered to the Oral Torah because the Oral Torah took this particular verse in Leviticus and added commentary saying that cleanliness could be risked to save the life of another. If the priest or the Levite would have followed the Oral Torah, this commentary would have allowed them to at least go and check on the guy and try to save his life. So the character choice is very intentional to the picture that Jesus is trying to set up.

Then enters the third person.

And they are a Samaritan.

Which is why most people have given this story the title "The Good Samaritan". And I've even seen awards titled "The Good Samaritan Award" and seen the news where they talk about someone who has been a "good Samaritan".

But it is interesting that these two words together would have been completely foreign to the Jewish people of Jesus' day. "Good Samaritan" would have been a paradox.

Because earlier in Israel's history, the Assyrians, this massive military superpower, dominated the world and, at one point, they invaded Israel to the North and captured this whole region of the Hebrew people. And their intent in doing so was to cause Israel as much pain as possible. For us, this would just mean killing them or making them slaves. But the Assyrians knew that there was something even more detrimental they could do to this people group. Because they knew that, for the Hebrews, their livelihood was embedded in their identity. Their ethnicity is what made them God's people. Their race is what identified their relationship to their God.

And so the Assyrians figured that instead of taking their race and identity and annihilating it, they would just dilute it.

So they invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel and they forced the Hebrews to marry Assyrians and have children.

What happens when a Hebrew person and an Assyrian person have a child?

The child is now only half Hebrew.

They lose the fullness of the identity of Israel.

And this would have been devastating. Because you have a whole generation of offspring who aren't fully Hebrew. Who don't have the identity of the people of Israel. And the same would happen for their children and offspring for the rest of their lineage. Their identity as God's people was stripped from them forever and it separated them from the rest of Israel.

Eventually, this group of people became known as the Samaritans.

And over time, a certain rage and hatred grew between the half breed Samaritans and the pure Israelites. They both claimed to be the true derivation. They both claimed that the other wasn't truly following God. They even went to war with each other.

You grew up learning to hate these people.

Because they were degenerative, pagan, half breeds.

For a pure Israelite Jew, a Samaritan was your greatest enemy.

At one point, Jesus is walking through Israel and he interacts with some Samaritans, which was already a dangerous thing to do, and the Samaritans reject him and tell him to leave. A little bit after this, Jesus' disciples catch wind of what happened and their response is that they ask Jesus if he wants them to call down fire from heaven and destroy the city.

This is how the Jewish people thought of Samaria.

So Jesus says the priest comes by and, to save his purity, he keeps walking. Then the Levite walks by and the same thing happens. And so at this point, if you are in the audience listening to Jesus tell this story, the last person you would expect to show up is a Samaritan. It just doesn't fit. Priests were Jews. Levites were Jews.

But a Samaritan?

Why would Jesus include a Samaritan?

Because Samaritans, though not fully Jewish, did still hold onto the Jewish tradition. They both came from the same history. Most importantly for this story, they both still followed the Torah. Samaritans believed that they were to live by Torah.

Just not Oral Torah.

So when it comes to the command in Leviticus about touching dead people, they believed the same thing as the priest and the Levite. They believed that you didn't touch a dead body, or even go near one, in order to remain ritually pure.

This is where Jesus' mastery of storytelling is incredibly evident.

Because the priest walks by and the audience would have anticipated that. The Levite approaches and does the same thing and, again, everyone saw this coming. But then Jesus pulls the rug completely out from under the crowd and says that a Samaritan shows up. After the first two, everyone probably was assuming that the third character was going to be the one to resolve the conflict. It would have been predictable storytelling. They would have expected a Pharisee or a Rabbi or a synagogue leader, someone who followed Oral Torah and could sacrifice cleanliness to save the life. But Jesus plays with their predictable expectation and flips it upside down. He still gives them the resolution of the third person coming to do what the first two failed to do. But he says that a Samaritan is the one to do it.

And the crowd is left with no stable ground on which to stand.

The evil, disgusting, wicked Samaritan who is supposed to follow the pattern of the priest and Levite is the one to help the half dead guy.

What a fascinating story.



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Even more fascinating than the content of the story itself is the context with which it is told in.

There is a discussion that takes place right before the parable that sets the entire thing up.

On one occasion an expert in the law (one of Israel's teachers) stood up to test Jesus. 

"Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 

"What is written in the Torah?" he replied. 

"How do you read it?" 

The man answered, "Love Adonai your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your strength and

with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus replied, "You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus,

"And who is my neighbor?"

The context of the story begins with this Torah scholar asking Jesus about eternal life. He is asking about how he enters into the very life that God has created the world for. 

"How do I participate in God's dream for the world?" 

Kind of facetiously, the man asks Jesus how to do this. 

And Jesus responds with a remark of his own, "You're the Torah scholar. You study this thing right? So you tell me, what does it say?" 

Now, the Torah doesn't actually have a command or a phrase that plainly says, "This is how you enter eternal life." And so when Jesus asks this, he is essentially asking, "How do you interpret the Torah? What is the essence that is found in all of Torah?"

So the scholar, in good Jewish fashion, selects two verses from the Torah to give his perspective on what it is all about. The first is from Deuteronomy 6v5, "Love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." And the second is from Leviticus 19v18, "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself..."

The scholar's answer is the combination of these two verses. 

And apparently this is how you enter eternal life. 

But there is a subtlety in the conversation going on here. There was a common debate amongst rabbis and scholars and leaders during Jesus' day about what the substance of Torah was; about what the greatest and overarching commandment was. And the discussion between Jesus and this Torah scholar so far is about that debate. But then the Torah scholar switches to another highly active debate going on within Judaism. 

Who was your neighbor?

Because, in Hebrew, the word used that translates to neighbor in English is the word rea and it has a bunch of different meanings used in a vast array of contexts and countless different ways. Almost like the word "family" in English. This has the potential to mean all sorts of things. As it was with rea. 

It could mean friend or close companion. 

It could mean the person who lives next to you in your village. 

It could mean your fellow nationality or ethnic group. 

It could even mean co-worker. People creating tunnels would call out rea as they dug through the rocks and the people on the other side would yell back. This is how they knew how close they were. Rea was even used for this. 

And then, to complicate things even further, the word rea is sometimes used in Torah to mean "anyone". 

This word is one of the most diverse words in the language. Which is why there was a pretty consistent discussion trying to decipher what it meant in different texts. 

So the Torah scholar brings up the saying, "Love your rea as yourself."

In terms of the eternal life discussion, Jesus evidently agrees. That this is a central part of participating in God's dream for the world; that this is the very essence of the what the Torah is about. 

But then the Torah scholar wants to dig deeper. He wants to know where Jesus stands on the second discussion. He wants to know what Jesus' definition of rea is in the context of this text. 

Essentially, this guy is making the point that anyone can say, "Love your neighbor," because neighbor can mean practically anything. So in the context of this verse in Leviticus, the scholar wants to know what version of neighbor Jesus thinks the Torah means. When God tells us to love our neighbor does he mean companion or villager or fellow Jew or is it something else altogether? 

"Jesus, what do you think God means when we are told to love our neighbor?"

"Who is our neighbor?"

In reply, Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho 

when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, 

beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 

A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man, 

he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place 

and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, 

came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 

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. 

The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, 

"Look after him and when I return, I will reimburse you for 

any extra expense that you may have." 

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who 

fell into the hands of robbers?"

The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him"

Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

Jesus replies to this question about the meaning of rea by saying, "Let me tell you a story and you tell me who the neighbor is?" 

And at the end, when Jesus asks him who the neighbor was, the scholar is supposed to answer "The Samaritan."

But he doesn't. 

He can't even bring himself to say the word out loud. 

This is the story of the half dead man on the road. It is a story of the question, "Jesus, what do you think it means to love your neighbor? Who do you believe your neighbor is?"

Who is it that we should love?

Who should we treat as "us" and love as we love ourselves?

Who should we view as an extension of ourselves?

Who should we be participating with and bringing flourishment and shalom to?

And Jesus' response is:

"Everyone"

...even your enemies. 

For Jesus, the word rea takes the definition of "anyone". 

Even the most vile, hated people in the world. They are our neighbors and our love and existence extends even to them, too. 

And we have to remember that the whole context of the question is about eternal life, about participating in God's dream for the world.

So, apparently, this is how Jesus says we carry that out. 

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This sort of statement by Jesus doesn't come very easily. Because it is a reality that requires dismantling how we typically view one another. The categories of "different" and "other" and all the people we are "against". Apparently, Jesus is trying to tell us that the world doesn't work like that. That those categories are simply fictions. 

That people aren't strangers.

They are neighbors. 

They are a part of you. 

Which has some pretty serious implications for how we view and relate to one another.

Apparently, in God's world, even enemies are connected to you. There is no conception of those who exist separately from you. No matter how angry or how much you disagree, Jesus is trying to show us that they, too, are in this thing with you. That we are living together under the same blue sky and they only way this thing is gonna work, the only way we can participate in God's dream for the world, is if we start having the same love for all people as we do for ourselves. 

It is Jesus confronting the walls that we have so thoroughly created and helping us see that our walls don't reach to the sky; that we have to get rid of the walls and barriers and otherness that is so central to our lifestyles, not because of some good and idealistic morality, but because this is simply how God created the world to work. 

Jesus is waking us up to the reality of just how big our village is. 

That this village is bigger than our walls and limits and barriers.

That this village involves everyone. 

Even the people we so often like to dehumanize and separate ourselves from.

Even the people we absolutely hate. 

Because they are our neighbors in this one big village we find ourselves in. 

That is what this parable is about. 

It is more than just being a good person and, when you are thrown into a messy situation, that you need to make sure you do the right thing. It is more than just being nice to the despised and disassociated with and making sure we swallow our pride and nod our head even to those we don't like or agree with. It includes all of that, but it is first and foremost about reminding us of the reality that there is no such thing as a distant stranger, there is no such thing as someone who has no connection to you and your world. That you can't pretend like they are somehow a different identity or breed or category than you. 

Because we are all neighbors. 

We are all fellow sojourners moving in the same direction and a part of the same village. 

And when we see this, when we view the world as a single community and unit, a deep and flourishing love is the only thing that makes sense anymore. If everyone is an extension of you, if we are all participating in the same village and world together, then not loving them is only going to cause problems for everyone. You find yourself in a collective humanity that makes certain things naturally just become impossible. 

War.

Violence.

Racism. 

Poverty. 

Sexism. 

Pride and greed. 

Elitism and oppression.

The myth of privatism. 

Economic injustice. 

Hierarchies and power structures that take advantage and separate people. 

Manipulation and control and degradation and the egocentrism that so often carries us through life. 

Because, behind all of these things is selfishness; a way of life that is just a result of not properly viewing the world. 

All of these fractured experiences are the manifestation that we have forgotten we are all neighbors of the same village. 

Instead of a competitive, self centered, dominating, 'trying to come out on top at the expense of someone else and overcome my opponents' that so much defines how we live in the world, Jesus is trying to show us that the only thing that makes sense is that we start cooperating. If you start dividing the village, eventually, it is all going to die off. Instead of only fending for ourselves, we have to see that our survival is rooted in the very existence of every single other being living in this world with us.

That is what Jesus is showing us through this story. 

That everyone is our neighbors. 

And when we begin to view each other this way, 

the world will never look the same again.