Luke 10 contains the famous parable of the good Samaritan, followed immediately by the encounter between Jesus and the two sisters, Martha and Mary. While the great parable has understandably garnered lots and lots of attention, less attention has been given to the way the parable shapes Jesus’s response to Martha’s impatient demand: “Tell her to help me” (Luke 10:40).
Here is the question: Why, after having just given the most famous parable about helping others and being a good neighbor, does Jesus not tell Mary to help her sister? We might have expected Jesus to scold Mary for not paying attention to his parable, for him to tell her to get to work. But he does not do this. To understand why, it is helpful to look again at the parable itself, paying attention especially to the identity of the good Samaritan.
Who Is the Good Samaritan?
The parable opens with the misfortune that befalls the victim. Robbers approach and “stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half dead” (Luke 10:30). The Gospel tells us that a priest and then later a Levite happen to come upon the victim, but instead of helping him, they both cross to the other side of the road and continue on their way.
The Gospel is likely calling our attention to something deeper.
Why don’t they stop to help? Sometimes, the impression is given that both the priest and Levite are heartless because they don’t stop to help the victim. However, the Gospel is likely calling our attention to something deeper. The priest and Levite are temple figures. They are responsible for the maintenance of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament and are likely journeying to offer sacrifice to God. The Old Testament has very clear guidelines concerning ritual cleanliness and purity on the part of those who offered sacrifice. Ritual purity was an absolute requirement to serve the living God, something that was threatened by contact with a dead body. Consider, for example, this passage from Leviticus 21:1–2:
The LORD said to Moses: Speak to the priests, Aaron’s sons, and tell them: None of you shall make himself unclean for any dead person among his kindred, except for his nearest relatives, his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother.
As men of the Old Testament and of the temple, the priest and the Levite cannot help the victim, whom they have every reason to suspect is dead. They have, as it were, a higher duty to God and the temple and so cannot risk contact with death prior to their service. Unsurprisingly, then, both cross to the other side and continue their journey.
So far, nothing that Jesus has said in the parable would have been shocking or scandalous. Things change, however, with the arrival of the “Samaritan traveler who came upon him, and was moved with compassion at the sight” (Luke 10:33). Two things should be mentioned here.
First, the appearance of the Samaritan, who turns out to be the one who has compassion upon a Jewish victim, in a parable to a Jewish audience, would have been shocking and scandalous. The bitter hatred and warfare between Samaritans and Jews at this time is well documented historically. Even some of Jesus’s own apostles, just a few verses earlier, asked the Lord if they could call down “fire from heaven” upon a Samaritan village when the Samaritans there refused to welcome Christ (see Luke 9:52–55).
Why does Jesus use a figure who surely would have provoked bewilderment and even anger among his audience? In part, it is surely because the hatred and rivalry between Jews and Samaritans in first-century Palestine would have been the strongest and most extreme set of opposites that Jesus could use in order to convey the power and beauty of Gospel mercy. No other set of opposites would quite deliver the shock value that makes the parable work.
Second, we can list all the things that the Samaritan does for the victim. In Luke 10:34–35, we read:
- He draws near to the victim, in marked contrast to the priest and Levite.
- He “poured oil and wine over his wounds.”
- He himself bandages the man’s wounds.
- He lifts the man up and sets him on his own animal.
- He takes the wounded man to an inn and cares for him for the rest of the day.
- The next day, he gives two silver coins (literally two denarii, two days’ wages) to the innkeeper so that the innkeeper can continue to care for the man.
- Finally, he tells the innkeeper to spare no expense in caring for the man, and if the innkeeper were to spend more than what the Samaritan has given him, “I shall repay you on my way back.”
Christ the Lord Is the Good Samaritan
The generosity, mercy, and compassion of the Samaritan are astonishing and overwhelming. He goes far and above ordinary aid. His kindness is marked by a kind of lavishness, and not only does he himself personally care for the wounded man but even promises that, should the man need anything else, he himself will come back to cover the cost.
The overwhelming generosity of the Samaritan puts us in a position to identify him. He is someone who journeys from another place, who alone has the ability to save someone half dead, who stays with the victim for a while, then leaves but gives the sure promise of his return. Surely, the good Samaritan is Christ the Lord.
Jesus can heal us of our sins and reconcile us to the Father.
Notice how the good Samaritan can do what the priest and Levite are unable to do. That is, he can do what the Old Testament could only hope for and point toward: He can heal us of our sins and reconcile us to the Father.
Notice also that the good Samaritan is on a journey. Jesus himself, at the moment he is delivering the parable, is journeying to Jerusalem, where he will take up the cross. In fact, one of the unique characteristics of Luke’s Gospel is the journey narrative, spanning Luke 9:51—18:14. In the midst of Luke’s journey narrative, Jesus gives a parable about someone—himself—on a journey! Further, when he finally arrives at the cross, Christ will pray even for those who are crucifying him: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). This prayer of Christ is found only in Luke’s Gospel and shows the depth of Christ’s mercy. On the cross, we see that the mercy of Jesus can reconcile even divinity and sinful humanity. In the face of such mercy, reconciliation between even the bitterest enemies, such as between Jew and Samaritan, becomes an easy thing.
If the Lord himself is the good Samaritan, who is the victim? Each person who hears the parable is the victim, and we are healed by the beauty and power of the Gospel. In St. Paul’s wonderful phrase, the Gospel is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then Greek” (Romans 1:16).
We are the victim because sin hurts us. Sin wounds us; it unmakes us, causing us to be enemies of God. Only Christ and his mercy heal us and raise us up, and we receive this mercy in the sacraments that he left for us. The sacraments are like the two coins the Samaritan leaves with the innkeeper. Remember that the Samaritan heals the victim by using oil and wine, likely reflecting medical protocols of the time. But oil and wine also have sacramental undertones. We should think of the oil of anointing of the sick and of the wine of the Eucharist, his own blood, by which we are redeemed.
The parable of the good Samaritan is told by Jesus in answer to a question from the young lawyer. He had asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). In response, Jesus delivers the parable, then answers with his own question: “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” (10:36).
In answer, the young man could have said, “Lord, you yourself are the great neighbor!” And that is surely right. However, his response focuses us squarely on Gospel mercy, the kind of mercy that can overcome any and all hostility and opposition. “The one who treated him with mercy,” he says. Jesus concludes the parable with a simple command: “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
Mary Has Chosen the Better Part
So, by the end of the parable, the Gospel calls each of us to be good Samaritans. Another way to say this is that the Gospel calls us to be like Jesus. In order to be like him, we have to learn his heart. And this is what Mary, the sister of Martha, realizes. She sits at his feet in order to come to know the Lord’s heart, so that she can then imitate his charity and mercy. Busyness all by itself does not necessarily include the compassion of Christ. It is small wonder that when Christ enters the home of Martha and Mary, after having just delivered a parable about helping others, the Lord does not scold Mary for leaving the work to Martha. Mary has the better wisdom, and like her, we have to sit at his feet and learn to love with his heart so that we can share his generosity and mercy with others.