In the past month or so, I’ve listened to three sermons about The Good Samaritan. You know the story:
A man is going from Jerusalem to Jericho. He gets robbed and beaten half to death. A priest passes by. A Levite passes by. And then a Samaritan (perhaps the most despised people group to the Jews) stops and helps.
The story was told to a an expert in the law who was trying to test Jesus. The important detail is that the expert was trying to justify himself.
Why is that important?
Because many today use this parable to talk about how the people of God should be. We should be Good Samaritans to people around us who are in need. Good message, right? It is, but that is not what Jesus is doing here. Jesus is responding to the expert’s efforts to justify himself by demonstrating that he cannot justify himself. The Good Samaritan’s behavior, if we are honest with ourselves, cannot be emulated by us. He is too good for us, his standard too high.
We would have to be willing to forgo any and every luxury when we know that someone else is need. We would have to be willing to give of ourselves entirely, exhausting all of our resources, so that someone else might be helped.
I’m not sure about you, but this is an impossible ideal for me.
But, and here is the good news…it was meant to be. In stunning paradox, we find that the good news of the Gospel is that we cannot be as good as the Good Samaritan. If we could be that good, we would be able to justify ourselves, eliminating our need for the atoning death of Jesus Christ.
Isn’t that great news?
Now I want to be clear that I’m not advocating for Christians to act like the priest or Levite, but we will always fall short of the goodness of the Samaritan. Always. That doesn’t eliminate our responsibility to be compassionate and sacrificial on behalf of others. But it does mean that when we fall short…which we will…we need not beat ourselves up in guilt.
As a former professor of mine used to say, “Jesus is looking for progress, not perfection.”
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Bible, Christianity, Compassion, Good Samaritan, Gospel, Social Action
But Jesus IS looking for perfection.
Matthew 5:48
And where would your professor say that Jesus is looking for progress?
If Jesus is looking for perfection and we fall short (which we do), what does that mean for us?
What do you mean *IF* Jesus is looking for perfection? How do you respond to Matthew 5:48?
I’m sure you aren’t surprised, but I disagree.
Is it hard to live like the good Samaritian? Yes. Is it impossible? No.
I, like you, do not believe that I am able to accomplish that task, but I think that there are plenty of examples of good samaritians in this world today. Take a look at Mother Teresa. Was she not just like the Good Samaritan?
I think that you are on the right path, but I think the point should be more that we cannot do those types of good deeds without Christ as our motivator. People who do good without Christ in their life are doing it for selfish reasons, but when living like Christ is our motivation, I believe that we can, and should, live exactly like the good samaritan.
No, I’m not surprised. That’s why we’re friends!
I think at the end of the day, we’ll have to agree to disagree and that’s okay.
As far as Mother Teresa is concerned, without diminishing any of the good she did, I do not think she measured up to the Good Samaritan in all situations at all times. The temptation for us, I think, is to take any good deeds and say, “See, it can be done.” But I don’t think Jesus was saying do this some times.
I think even with Christ as our motivator we still cannot be as good as the Good Samaritan…but I understand why many think so. In my opinion (and I’m sure we’ll disagree), many Christians put themselves back under the law (self-righteousness) after receiving Christ. That’s certainly how many pastors preach this passage…as Christians we should be Good Samaritans to others. But that is just putting us back under the law.
Again, I’m not saying we should strive to serve and sacrifice for others, but I think given the context of the text, this was Jesus way of telling the guy, “You can’t justify yourself.”
But, to further the conversation, I’ll ask this: why would Jesus share this parable in response to a question from someone asking how they could be justified?