Jesus answered “Who is my neighbour?” with a story in which the hero was the man his listeners despised

A lawyer wanted to know how far his duty to love went. “Who is my neighbour?” he asked Jesus. The answer made a despised foreigner the hero.

The parable of the Good Samaritan, in Luke 10:25 to 37, is one of Jesus’s best-known stories. Its power comes from a detail that is easy to miss today: for Jesus’s Jewish listeners, a Samaritan was the last person they expected to be the good example.

The question

A lawyer, an expert in the law of Moses, tested Jesus by asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked him what the law said. The lawyer answered correctly: love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. Then, “willing to justify himself”, he asked, “And who is my neighbour?”

The road to Jericho

Jesus told of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, a steep and dangerous road, who was attacked by robbers, stripped, beaten and left half dead. A priest came by, saw him and passed by on the other side. A Levite, who served in the temple, did the same.

Then a Samaritan came. Jews and Samaritans had a long history of religious and ethnic hostility. The Samaritan saw the man and “had compassion on him”. He bandaged his wounds, poured on oil and wine, put him on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he paid the innkeeper and promised to cover any further cost.

The twist

Jesus then asked the lawyer which of the three “was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves”. The lawyer could not bring himself to say “the Samaritan”. He said, “He that shewed mercy on him.” Jesus replied, “Go, and do thou likewise.”

The lawyer had asked who qualified as his neighbour, hoping to limit his duty. Jesus changed the question: not “who is my neighbour?” but “who acted as a neighbour?”

Why the priest and Levite passed

The story does not say why they passed by. They may have feared robbers, or worried about becoming ritually unclean by touching a body. Whatever their reasons, their religious roles did not produce compassion.

Lessons for this week

Compassion costs. The Samaritan gave time, money, oil, wine and his own animal.

Neighbours cross boundaries. The one who helped was from a different community, and the one helped was a stranger.

Religion is tested on the road. The test is whether we stop, whatever we believe.

A prayer

Lord, open my eyes to the people I pass by. Give me a heart that stops, hands that help and a willingness to cross the lines that divide us. Amen.

The lawyer wanted a definition. Jesus gave him a road, a wounded man and a Samaritan who stopped.