The Good Samaritan
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The Good Samaritan
We all know the story of the Good Samaritan and we know that it’s supposed to have a very basic moral: do good to people, even when they don’t seem to be your responsibility. Even when you don’t owe them anything, or when it’s someone from a group that considers you an enemy, be generous to them and take care of them. That’s what a true neighbor does.
And that’s a true interpretation of the story, but we should ask, who shows this trait the most? Who is the most selfless, the most merciful, the person who always takes the initiative for those in need?
God, of course. God, who has taken mercy on us in the person of Jesus Christ
The parable of the good Samaritan is a story about what we should do for each other. But it’s first of all a story of what Christ has already done for us.
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There was once a man on a journey
That’s how this story begins and ultimately, it’s not just talking about a man. The entire human race is on a journey from the womb to the tomb, from this life to the next. And this humanity has been set upon by thieves, by the Devil himself, the liar and accuser and deceiver.
We were ambushed in the Garden of Eden. We were taken in by the serpent and we were despoiled of our divine sonship. Our mind and wills were robbed of their keenness and strength. Our feelings and instincts were thrown into complete disarray. Our bodies were riddled with pain and sickness and fatigue and corruption. That’s how the demon-thieves left us, lying on the road of life, beaten, twisted, and unconscious, waiting for death.
And who was there to help us?
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A Priest and a Levite passed by
The priest and the Levite represent those who are supposed to have the answers. It’s their job to help us with our problems, to make us right again with God and with ourselves. But they don’t. They can’t.
The Jewish religious leaders hadn’t been able to make the people righteous. They couldn’t save the fallen world. Neither could the philosophers or the pagan priests. Neither can the psychologists or the wellness counselors or the self-help authors
These people didn’t make us and they can’t fix us. They come and go and they leave humanity pretty much as they found it, sick and dying in the road.
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Christ
Christ is the foreigner who comes to save us.
We had gotten ourselves into this mess, it wasn’t the Lord’s fault we opened ourselves to the Devil’s assault. But Christ comes to us, the one who made us, the one who can remake us, comes to us on our road, on the human path.
He raises our humanity, lifts us up, takes the weight of our problems upon himself and brings us to a place where we can be taken care of.
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The Church as the Inn of Healing
In the parable, the Samaritan brings the wounded man to an inn, gives the innkeeper money, and says “Take care of this man till I come back. And if this money runs out, I will compensate you for your trouble when I return.”
Christ has ascended into Heaven but he’s going to come back. In the meantime, He has left His Church to care for a humanity who is sick in mind and body. The Church is in charge of helping all mankind until Christ’s return and He will reward us then in the measure that we have carried out our task.
So who are we supposed to be in this parable? Well, as we said, we’re supposed to be like the good Samaritan, caring for those we come across. But we can also see ourselves in the wounded man, the poor traveler bruised and broken with error and vice and pain, the man who Christ Himself came to save. But, perhaps most of all, we are the members of the Church, the innkeepers.
Christ has already paid us with His grace, His forgiveness, His unfathomable generosity. He’s promised to pay us even further, if we just take care of our brother, if we offer him truth and kindness and correction and love and material support.
That’s what it means to be a member of the Church. That’s what Jesus, the Good Samaritan, will ask us about on the day He comes back to the Inn to see how the stranger He rescued is getting along.