And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii[e] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” – Luke 10: 25-37
In the Parable, the traditional interpretation is pretty hard on the Priest and the Levite. In both cases, so the conventional wisdom goes, they didn’t care about the man. They just avoided him, and it was the “hated” Samaritan who came to the aid of the poor guy.
Now, there is truth to that, but I think there’s more to the
story.
The robbers left the man half dead. He may have appeared dead.
Now, the Priest and the Levite had one overriding mission in life –
to worship God. And they couldn’t do it
if they were ritually unclean. And I think that may be the key to understanding
this.
The Priest and Levite, seeing what appeared to be a dead man, didn’t
dare approach him. To touch him would
have made them ritually unclean. Were
that to happen, they would have to be ritually purified before resuming their
duties.
So, it seems to me that the point of the parable is that, while we
should worship God, loving our neighbor might sometimes be the form of that worship.
There are times the best way to tell God that we love Him is to spread His love to others.
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