July 13, 2025 (Tia Hudson)
Luke 10:25-37
Today’s Gospel reading is one of the most familiar parables in the New Testament. We know a Good Samaritan is someone who helps others regardless of the cost to themselves. Often this person is seen as an exemplary moral person. Many states have laws that protect Good Samaritans, or those that provide aid in good faith during an emergency, so they will not be held liable for any unintentional harm caused.
It’s important to know that rather than an exemplary moral person, Samaritans at the time of Jesus were seen as unclean heretics who were shunned and hated by the orthodox. According to the Bible Gateway: “[Samaritans] established as their center of worship a temple on Mount Gerizim, … They had their own unique version of the five books written by Moses, … but rejected the writings of the prophets and Jewish traditions. [They considered] … the Jerusalem temple and Levitical priesthood illegitimate.”
To the Jews, a Samaritan was more revolting than a Gentile (pagan); Samaritans were half-breeds who defiled the true religion. Priests and Levites on the other hand were the religious leaders of the Jews. Both Priests and Levites served in the temple in various capacities. They were held in high esteem.
The lawyer wants to know what he must do to have eternal life. Jesus, as any good teacher will, turns the question back on the lawyer. Jesus knows that he already knows the answer.
What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus says to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
Jesus, as he does so often, turned the accepted hierarchy on its head. The priest and Levite actually move to the other side of the road to avoid the injured man. It is clear that they saw the injured man, and deliberately ignored him. But of course, the lawyer, being a lawyer, has to take it one step further. He wants to justify himself, the story says. The question he asks shows that he was hoping for a different answer that will perhaps justify the fact that he has not loved his neighbor as himself. “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus answers that question with the story of the Good Samaritan – how a hated heretic went above and beyond to help a stranger when the religious leaders of that day passed him by.
Finally, Jesus asks the lawyer to tell him who was the neighbor to the injured man. Reluctantly, the lawyer has to admit that it was the unclean heretic that was the neighbor. He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
And here we have a clear understanding of what was important to Jesus. It is not one’s standing in the church; he does not hesitate to show the priest and the Levite as doing the wrong thing in passing by the injured man.
When the lawyer answers Jesus he does not even name the one who helped as a Samaritan. He cannot associate that identity with the actions the Samaritan took out of pity for the man who had been beaten and robbed. He simply says “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus tells the lawyer to do as the Samaritan did. Be a neighbor even to those you do not know; show mercy even to those who are not like you, who do not worship like you, even to those long considered to be an enemy to you and your people.
Mercy. What does it mean? It’s not a new concept. Micah 6:8 tells us “[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Mercy is integral to understanding God and God’s dealings with humankind. It describes an essential quality of God and one that God requires of his people. The noun “mercy” denotes compassion and love, not just as feelings or emotions, but as emotions expressed in tangible ways. In other words, mercy requires us to do something.
And here we come to the urgent importance of this story for us today. It seems that every day there is a new story of merciless actions against both immigrants and our most needy citizens. Mercy involves empathy, and empathy, according to Elon Musk, is the “fundamental weakness of Western civilization…” Although he is no longer favored by the current administration, that understanding of empathy and mercy seem to be a part of almost every presidential order and laws passed since January. Just this week the Secretary of Agriculture said that there would be no amnesty given to those being kidnapped by ICE. She also said that the loss of people to harvest crops because of ICE raids and deportations will be made up by requiring those on Medicaid to work, ignoring the fact that most of those who can work, already are. Our government has set a quota of 3,000 immigrants per month to be deported or sent to prisons and interment camps. People are kidnapped off the street indiscriminately and sent away with no chance to have a lawyer or even to defend themselves or . Some of the people taken have been citizens and legal residents of the United States. Some are taken as they leave the courthouse where they are going through the proper process to obtain legal status.
There is no mercy here. There is no “compassion and love … expressed in tangible ways. It does us well to remember that even in the US government, mercy is written into the Constitution.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
-14th Amendment
It’s important to note that the Amendment first references what is due citizens, and then references “any person within its jurisdiction…” citizen or not.
And so, we come back Jesus’ answer to the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?”
“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
The harm being done to people here in the US is being done to our neighbors. We may not live next door to them, or even know their names, but Jesus tells us to be like the Samaritan, who did not let the differences in their culture and enmity between their people, stop him from showing mercy.
Mercy is a quality that God requires of God’s people. As Christians, the call to mercy cannot be ignored. It is exemplified in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. “For our sake and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.”
He taught us how to be merciful. Go and do likewise.