There are some streets in our area where you might not feel safe going out alone, particularly after dark. In Jesus’ time the road that goes from Jerusalem to Jericho had the nickname “Blood Alley.” It’s the setting for one of the most familiar stories in the whole Bible.
A religious lawyer went to Jesus and asked “How can I get eternal life?” Jesus pointed him to the Old Testament law – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And love your neighbour the same way you love yourself.” But being a good lawyer, the man wanted to check the small print. So he asked Jesus “Who is my neighbour?”
Jesus told him the familiar story of the Samaritan, who helped a man after two full-time religious workers had passed by. Samaritans and Jews had a long-standing hatred for each other. You might have expected the Samaritan to spit on the injured Jew – not pick him up and help him. So the lesson of the story is pretty clear. Your neighbour – the one to whom you owe your deepest love and compassion – is everyone who God sends across your path. Even – or perhaps especially - if that person is from a group that you would normally ignore or despise. See someone in need, says Jesus, and the very fact that you have seen them gives you a responsibility to help them.
In an age of mass-communication the story takes on a whole new challenge. A quarter of the world’s population are now online. Two-thirds of the population have a mobile phone. All these people are our neighbours now. How should we respond when we are just a phone call away from people who live under persecution or extreme poverty.
The story isn’t just about poverty though. It also challenges us to ask who are the people living close to us who are beaten up, despised, left at the roadside to die? Sex offenders? Asylum seekers? Benefit claimants?
Now let’s rewind the tape and imagine the story a little differently. Let’s imagine the Samaritan arrived a few minutes earlier. This time he arrives on the scene to find the robbers in the act of beating up the poor man. What is his responsibility then? Surely it’s not just to wait until the violence is over and then patch up the man’s wounds. Surely the Samaritan then is called to intervene to stop the man being beaten up in the first place. Suddenly this story is not just about charity to the poor and oppressed. Suddenly this story takes on a political dimension. What are we called to do to prevent poverty, exclusion, marginalisation happening in the first place? (Check out Micah Challenge, a coalition of Christians challenging governments to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals.)
Just one more thought about this amazing Bible story. Since Sunday School I’ve got used to calling this man the “Good” Samaritan. Now I realise that the Bible never calls him “good”. He’s never set apart as having any particular virtue. Somehow if we call him the “Good” Samaritan we make him exceptional, saintly even – not ordinary like the rest of us. But no, as far as Jesus goes he’s just the bog-standard Samaritan. The compassion that he shows is not special. It’s what God expects from every one of us.