A story about a good man

Jews hated and scorned their neighbours in Samaria. So this incredible story, whose hero is a Samaritan, would have made a huge impression on the audience. Jesus told it to show to his Jewish hearers their prejudice, and to broaden their idea of who their neighbour was. It is anyone we meet who is in need. The religious authorities, like the priest and the Levite, are too involved in their own little religious world and ritual purity to care for this poor man who is lying half-dead in the road.

They pass by on the other side, as some religious people do today. But the Samaritan sees the need, is filled with compassion, and looks after the man at great personal cost. That’s how citizens of God’s kingdom are meant to behave.

Another meaning

But there is another meaning here. Perhaps we are to see Jesus himself as ‘the good Samaritan’. He was scorned by the religious leaders but full of compassion for broken people.

He sees our need and, at great personal cost (eventually, it took him to the cross), offers us rescue and healing. These are things we could never get from dead religion! What a story! And actually, it is true.