The good Samaritan, and well known, and well-worn parable, most of us have heard in many times, and we all know the story – Yet, as all of Christ’s parables, the story of the good Samaritan resists simple interpretation.
Sometimes it is preached as a direct answer to the scholar’s question about who our neighbor is – everyone is – after all the good Samaritan was a Samaritan, a group mutually hated by the jews.
Sometimes the parable is preached as a lesson on what it means to be a neighbor, the responsibility to a neighbor, following the example of the good Samaritan.
The parable can also be preached as a call to love one’s neighbor and not just be fulfilling an obligation – the good Samaritan had no obligation to do what he did – loving one’s neighbor should be about more than just fulling a rule.
These are all good and valid readings of the parable – but they all focus upon the good Samaritan – what about the man half-dead? Stripped and beaten? Who is that?
St Ambrose read this parable as an allegory for Christ, with Christ as the good Samaritan. Indeed, the parable does follow the arc of salvation history – there is a fall, when the man is beaten half dead. There is the Old Testament law of the priest and the Levites, who are. There is the new law of with the good Samaritan, bring healing where the old did not, and there is even the promise of the Samaritan to return again.
This reading of the parable says that perhaps it is not just a parable about being like the good Samaritan – for this reading places the scholar of the law… and us… as the man half dead, beaten and robbed. To, as Christ commands at the end, to go and do likewise is not just to imitate the good Samaritan, but to accept the mercy of the Samaritan – to let the Samaritan be a neighbor.
Yet how is the scholar of the law like the man beaten by robbers? He certainly does not think of himself like that. This is a man of means -he could afford to study – he is in control, his needs are met – why would he accept help from a Samaritan, hated so much by the Jews.
Yet this scholar is utterly dependent on others at the most basic level -who cared for him as a child, no child raises themselves. Who helped him when we was sick? How does he eat? As a scholar he is not farming – who is doing the farming? – and who did he learn to talk form, the basics of language – he did not invent language – and as a scholar, who was his teacher? Which rabbis is he a disciple of? Even at these basic levels, the scholar is dependent – but can he acknowledge it? Can he accept it?
And we are no different in our dependance? - And this does not even touch upon some more modern forms of dependance – such as the internet for instructions on how to do things – or google maps for how to travel somewhere. These all-required computers, which requires different people to get the materials, another to build the parts, yet someone else to assemble, another to else to design, even then it is not programed to do anything yet. Everything we do depends on others
Yet dependance on others goes deeper than these things, for there is a moral dependance, a spiritual dependance. The half-dead, beaten man is not just dependent, but has been harmed and injured – picking up the allegory of Christ from St Ambrose once again, this is nothing other than the fall – original sin – a wound in our nature that leads to the struggles we have with sin. We often feel like we can do it, we just need to try harder, yet our strength is never enough – the strength of the scholar of the law was not enough – if he had the strength, why would he have needed to justify himself?
However, in a broken state there Christ is to bandage the spiritual wounds – forgiveness of original sin and adoption as sons and daughters of God in baptism. Forgiveness of other faults and failings after that in the confessional, which is always available. Strengthening by the bread of angels, the body of Christ, the Eucharist. If we will accept it, if we can accept our need, Christ is there, just as the Good Samaritan was there.
Can we acknowledge our dependance? Can we see our own failings and struggles? Can we accept in our sins our inability to save ourselves? Can we accept our need for salvation? – The parable of the good Samaritan brings many lessons, and many questions – but here consider – if we are that man stripped, robbed, and beaten - Can we accept mercy acknowledging our dependance – can we accept Christ’s mercy, healing, and salvation as neighbor?