One of the benefits of the parables of Jesus is that there is always something to learn when the church takes the time to consider them. As we slow down and meditate upon each story, and lesson, the church can grow in their faith by wondering what Jesus is teaching—even in a parable as familiar as the Good Samaritan—there is the opportunity for us to grow.
So today I want us to think about these familiar words from Luke 10 which is a story that we have read and considered since early in our faith walks.
But before we consider any application of these words, let’s first see how the parable begins.
Move 1- Who is Jesus talking about?
Our passage begins with an encounter. A lawyer is talking with Jesus, and he has a question. However, this person is more than a simple lawyer as we would define them by 21st century standards.
By station this person was tasked with 3 distinct roles marking him as different from the Pharisees who normally challenge Jesus’ authority and question him. And those roles are:
A. Continuing to master the Torah. This individual studied the Torah and considered it often. This would something like what you and I do in Sunday School or Bible study.
B. Familiarity with the oral traditions. More than just copying and considering the Torah (which was part of their daily task), this person was also familiar with the teachings (or the applications) related to the Torah that was passed down from the rabbis. So, he knows the text and he also is aware of the interpretation of the text. An important distinction here to note.
C. Recognized authority over difficult legal cases. When a legal dispute came into the community, this person was charged with adjudicating these disputes fairly based on their studies and their understanding of God’s Law in totality taking oral tradition and the formal text and holding them both before the dispute and then making a ruling.
In this case, we might consider the lawyer who is speaking with Jesus in Luke 10 to fill a position that looks more like a hybrid between judges and lawyers in our current cultural context.
While they might have interacted with Pharisees often, and have frequent run-ins with them, a lawyer such as they, was not the religious arm of the nation of Israel.
So, when this person, whose name is lost to history, asks Jesus these two questions that begin our text, he knows where they questions originate from in the Torah, and he would have a solid understanding of how Mosaic Law would prescribe, and he would know the mandated answer to both questions.
So, Jesus is confronted by this person who should know the answer to the very question being asked of him.
And we can conclude that Jesus is being baited into a trap. . . But a trap he won’t fall into.
Move 2- Jesus is the Samaritan
When we come to Jesus with a question, we think we have the answer to and want Jesus to affirm our answer, there are times when the Lord offers us a different direction to reflect upon. . . this is one of those moments.
Jesus offers a response in the form of a parable that you are familiar with.
A man is travelling the 17 miles between Jerusalem and Jericho. The road is treacherous, sloping down 3,000 feet from the Holy City of Jerusalem to its destination in Jericho.[1] As such it is rocky, and it is curvy. The topography is a mixture providing suitable places for bandits and criminals to hide—and you know what happens next.
The man in our story is robbed, beaten, stripped, and left for dead.
Three people come by and all three have the same choice in how to act. Two ignore him; one does not.
It is the last one that we always focus upon for he provides a rebuke, we believe, of the legalism of the first two.
We typically consider the first two (the priest and Levite) to represent the institutional church—and we are cautioned to be careful that we do not become like those two characters. Uncaring. More worried about the letter of the law that does not consider who our neighbor is and what the Lord asks of us.
Then we naturally focus on the last person who finds the beaten man, and we are then drawn to wonder about that person.
So, let me ask you to consider the Samaritan. . . Who is this unnamed man? The text gives clues for us.
For me the most glaring clue is found in verse 33. Luke says that the Samaritan was “moved with pity.” And the verb used here is translated as pity, but it is also rendered accurately as compassion.
Whenever we hear the word pity in our context today, we often think of it negatively or in condescension. But the word here carries none of that tone. As does happen at times, we add the negative tone.
Every narrative use of this verb in the gospels is a hinge between human need and divine intervention. The nine other times it is used narratively in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Jesus displaying COMPASSION as he looks out at the very people that he has been sent to. For instance, “Jesus looks upon the people, and he has COMPASSION upon them for the were like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36. Not a use of negative pity but loving compassion.
The other three times this word occurs in the New Testament?
We have the Prodigal Father seeing his son coming home and he is moved with COMPASSION and runs to restore his lost son.
In Matthew 18, the Lord of the house sees that his servant cannot repay his debt, and he has COMPASSION on him, and he releases the debt.
And finally in Luke 10, the Good Samaritan, has pity, or COMPASSION, on someone who through no fault of their own is beaten, wounded, and in need of salvation.
In this case, who is the Good Samaritan?
I wonder if it is Jesus and not the Church Universal, not the Church local, and the aspiring Church-to-be.
I wonder if parable is telling us today that Father, has sent the Good Samaritan, an outsider, someone who does not belong here, someone who was not born here, to come and to find the broken, the lost, and the wounded, and to give of Himself, sacrificially, to help and restore the one in the ditch?
So, when the lawyer asks who is my neighbor, and who does the law call me to care for, we find Jesus offering a very specific answer?
Move 3- the one in the ditch.
So then this begs the question, who’s in the ditch?
And I suspect that you can guess that I think the one in the ditch is you and me. The church both local and historic. For through no fault of our own we have found ourselves in the ditch separated from wholeness with God.
In the case of our parable, the Good Samaritan does what the institutional church, and the lawyer, will not do, as he looks for his neighbor. Jesus practices being with, and from last week— Jesus shares the burden—when he is free to pass the work off.
The Good Samaritan Lord has COMPASSION on those who are broken, and he is willing to care for each of us for we know what it feels like to be beaten down as we travel from one place to another along the path of life. We know what it feels like to be set upon and left for dead by people who judge us to NOT be their neighbor by the letter of a law that they choose to elevate.
This then leads me back to our conversation from Galatians from the last two weeks.
If we are truly in the ditch, and if we need a Good Samaritan, a Savior, to find us, to give of himself for us, to make sure that we are cared for, and to come back at a later time for us to insure that we are fully healed and restored, then should we not be working testify about the goodness of the Savior who helped us and found us when no one else was willing to do that work on our behalf?
For in myself I am not redemptive. You are not redemptive. No church building is redemptive, and neither is a church ministry—only the Lord who pulls us out of the ditch can save us. We may aspire to be the Good Samaritan, but this text causes me to pause and wonder about the nature of the one would willing care for the broken when others pass by.
Should we not be working together to make sure that we are not biting and devouring one another and then the share the burdens with those we know who are hurting and beaten just like us?
While others have passed right by us, while they have walked right by thinking they have all the answers to all the questions, the Good Samaritan has sacrificial compassion on us, and actually on them. For nowhere in the parable do we see him judge them or complain about them either.
Conclusion
If the Lord is indeed the Good Samaritan, then we have an important role in this parable—even if we are in the ditch. And as I have said it is one of testimony and it is one of evangelism.
So, as we think about our Good Samaritan who finds us and rescues us, can we also notice how we are then called to be present in the lives of other members of the Body of Christ who themselves have been wounded and left by the wayside by others? Can share this good news with them and help to turn to the one who loves them and will care for them as we too have been cared for?
[1] https://www.rotation.org/topic/bible-background-for-the-good-samaritan. Accessed on July 9, 2025.
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