There are some passages in scripture that may become so familiar that we quickly leap to the conclusion and do not remain open to new dimensions of understanding. When this occurs, we are no longer teachable. One such passage is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Preceding the parable, an expert in the law has asked Jesus about the greatest command, to which Jesus offers the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:5, then adds the command from Leviticus 19:18, to love one’s neighbor as yourself.
After his answer, we witness the gentle graciousness of Jesus demonstrated powerfully. The expert in the law, seeking to save face and appear righteous through his grasp of the law, asks Jesus “who is my neighbor,” and Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Due to our familiarity with the story and how it is often applied, what we may not realize is what Jesus disguised, yet disclosed in the story. At the end Jesus asks “who was a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?” And the expert in the law humbly answers “the one who had mercy on him.”
The one who had mercy on him
The one who had mercy on him
Who has mercy on humanity?
In other words, Jesus told the expert in the law that HE was Jesus’ neighbor, for the story is first about humanity and how we are bruised and beaten and battered by the very law that should point the way to God’s righteousness and our freedom. Instead, the law (and how we apply it) leaves us spiritually disabled and lying in the ditch. The expert in the law illustrated how he’d been beaten, and left bleeding and dying in the ditch.
Jesus, the one rejected by the Pharisees, the law experts, just like the Samaritans were rejected and despised, walks the road we walk and kneels to lift humanity out of the ditch (read Philippians 2:6-8 and Isaiah 53:3). In other words, Jesus tells the man “you are my neighbor and this is what it means for you to be my neighbor.”
Herein is the significance of being humble and teachable. I can imagine something profound may have happened in this moment for the expert in the law: a tipping of the heart from pride to humility, from self-justifying arrogance to deep gratitude for receiving what cannot be self-generated. Though the Gospels do not offer us any indication, I can imagine that as this man’s eyes looked into Jesus’s eyes, a profound shift took place as he realized he was the man in the ditch and the very law he so proudly served left him there bleeding and dying.
This shift and awareness of grace is essential for the last of this lesson to matter. The last lesson is when Jesus, who is the Good Samaritan, says “go and do likewise,” inviting the man who was so sure of himself to step off that pedestal and be the Good Samaritan, knowing the rich power of serving others who can never pay you back—but doing so out of the rich generosity of God, as one who has received that which will never be paid back.
That’s teachability. Being open to new lessons of mercy, grace, love, and trust. We don’t know what became of the expert in the law, but we don’t need to know. What matters is how you and I respond. What matters is our teachability. What matters is what we do when we hear Jesus say “go and do for others as you have received from me.”
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Stephen Carl