The Good Samaritan and using religion as an excuse for neglect
Our Lord shatters narrow debates by showing that love of neighbour is proved only in action: the Samaritan saw a brother where others saw a burden.
Our Lord shatters narrow debates by showing that love of neighbour is proved only in action: the Samaritan saw a brother where others saw a burden.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How our Lord’s parable of the Good Samaritan both teaches us about charity in practice, as well as profound theological truths
That the narrative contrasts external religiosity without love against the universal law of charity written in the heart, binding Jew, Samaritan and Gentile alike.
Why the Good Samaritan’s detailed acts of compassion reveal true neighbourliness, surpassing that of the priest and Levite, and exposing the hardness of formalism without spirit.
He shows us that true fidelity is not in excuse or ritual alone, but in mercy rooted in God’s eternal law.
For more on the general context of this Parable, see Part I.
The Good Samaritan
The Preaching of the Cross, Part I, Chapter XVII
St. Luke x. 25-37
Story of the Gospels, § 100
Burns and Oates, London, 1886
Have we made the wrong assumptions about the Good Samaritan parable and its context?
The Good Samaritan, external rituals and theological debates
The Good Samaritan and using religion as an excuse for neglect
Form of Our Lord’s answer
Some difficulty has been raised in consequence of the form of our Lord’s answer, in which He appears not so much to meet the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ as to correct the spirit in which the question itself may have been put, by the example of the Samaritan, who did not ask himself whether the sufferer lying before him was a ‘neighbour’ or not, whether he were or were not of his own race, and the like, but showed that he considered him as having a claim on his compassion and service by the mere title of his suffering, or at least of his being a man like himself.
Perhaps the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ implied a narrow and exclusive view of the relationship spoken of, at least wherever there was occasion for active exertion and labour in behalf of those in whom that relationship existed. Perhaps there were questions of this kind agitated in the schools of the Scribes, as there could hardly fail to be as to a matter of so much practical importance, and perhaps this lawyer was in the habit of hearing distinctions made in answer to such questions which did not quite satisfy his conscience. In such a case our Lord might well give a reply which struck at the spirit in which such distinctions may too often have been made.
On the other hand it must be remembered that our Lord does not seem to hint at this inversion of the question of the lawyer, when He says simply, after putting forward the narrative of the parable, ‘Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the robbers?’ And perhaps it is unnecessary to insist on the difficulty which has thus been raised.
For the relation of neighbour, like that of brother, is essentially a double one. We are neighbours to those who are neighbours to us. If the Samaritan was neighbour to the wounded man, the wounded man was neighbour to the Samaritan. What our Lord’s words imply is the question, Which of the three acted as a neighbour to the man who had fallen among robbers, and thereby showed that he understood his own relation to him and the obligations which it involved?
And in this question the true answer to the question of the lawyer is involved. The priest and the Levite were not neighbours to the sufferer, therefore in their judgment he had no claim on them by the title of neighbourhood, or if he had, that claim was superseded by the circumstances of the case, whether as regarded him or as regarded themselves. For some reason or other, he was not their neighbour in the sense of the precept that they were to love their neighbour as themselves. They may have drawn the line so to exclude all whom they did not know to be Jews, or they may have drawn the line so as to excuse themselves under certain particular circumstances, as they did with regard to the natural and Divine law of honouring parents in the case of the Corban.
The Samaritan’s love
The Samaritan’s interpretation of the precept did not admit of any such distinctions. The man by the wayside was his neighbour, even though he may not have been of the same race. And even though he himself might have had many reasons for pleading that, under the circumstances, he was not bound to stop and recognize the claim, at least not to recognize it at such a cost, by showing mercy to him the Samaritan showed himself a true neighbour, and at the same time proved that the man on whom he showed mercy was his neighbour in the true sense of the commandment of the Law.
There was the common nature and origin which made them brothers, for they were both children of the Heavenly Father and of one human ancestor. The needs and sufferings of the one called on the resources and powers of the other, and these were the measure by which the active love enjoined by the commandment was to be limited, or rather let loose without restraint.
The Samaritan loved his neighbour as himself, because he measured his service and help simply by the requirements of the sufferer and by his own powers of relieving them. The Son of Sirach says that God in the beginning ‘gave to every man charge concerning his neighbour,’1 and it was this original commandment, founded on the truth, that, as St. Paul says, ‘God made of one all mankind to dwell upon the whole face of the earth,’2 which was the foundation and principle of the conduct of the Samaritan.
The commandment, old and new
In this way, therefore, as we see, the question of the lawyer as to the true basis of the claim of neighbourhood was answered, and nothing more was required to guide his conduct aright than this simple principle loyally and lovingly applied. When our Lord set before the lawyer the whole of the treatment of the wounded man by the Samaritan, in all its details, it is clear that every word which He said found an echo in the heart of His hearer.
It may have been an unusual thing for charity to be so tender and manifold and thoughtful in its manifestations, but the charity of the Samaritan did not go beyond the instincts of all who felt themselves God’s children, placed by Him in the society which He had created, and their membership of which involved the duty of brotherly love. In this sense we find St. John speaking of this duty as an old commandment, for, as he says, they ‘had it from the beginning.’3
It was, in fact, the commandment which was renewed by Moses, when he bade the people love their neighbours as themselves. But, at the same time, we find our Lord calling it a ‘new commandment,’4 and speaking of it as His own commandment, because He gave it the motive of His own most perfect example, and by means of the Incarnation supplied a new foundation for its obligation, as well as fresh impulses and aids of grace to enable us to fulfil it properly. And, at the moment at which He made His answer to the inquiry of the lawyer, He could not but have had in His mind what He was about to do in this respect.
This consideration may serve to throw a new light on the picture which our Lord has here drawn of the charitable action of the Samaritan.
And how are we to apply this in our own lives? Fr Coleridge’s commentary continues in the next parts.
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The Good Samaritan
Have we made the wrong assumptions about the Good Samaritan parable and its context?
The Good Samaritan, external rituals and theological debates
The Good Samaritan and using religion as an excuse for neglect
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Ecclus. xvii. 12.
Acts xvii. 26.
1 St. John ii. 7.
St. John xiii. 34.
Doesn't the actions of the Good Samaritan confirm the Natural Law? This law is written on every human heart I believe. Did the priest and Levite disregard their own conscience and pass by of their own free-will? Or were they caught up in appearances, since many passed on this road? Thank you!
The case of the “Corban" refers to the biblical teaching in Mark 7:11-13 where Jesus condemns the tradition of corban, a vow dedicating property to God, which allowed people to avoid supporting their parents by declaring their potential resources "Corban" (given to God) instead. This legalistic tradition, upheld by some Jewish scribes, opposed the commandment to honor one’s parents.