The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Before we get started today, I need you to make notes on the answer to three questions. We will then file the answers away and use them later in the lesson.

I want you to think of someone whom you regard as an enemy … or someone that you dislike strongly.

I want you to think of someone whom you regard as disgusting or perhaps just irritating.

I want you to think of a group or class of people that you don’ t like or don’t trust or are uncomfortable with. {Examples: mathematicians, people over 70, Chinese people, …}

We are going to take a look at a book today that Tony and Amy might want to use for some of the lessons over the summer, the book Parables from the Back Side by Ellsworth Kalas. The Biblical materials involved are the parables of Jesus. That in itself should make the lessons rich. However, in each parable Ellsworth Kalas tries to find a new perspective that can make it possible for the parable to speak to us in new and fresh ways.

Please turn to Luke 10:25-37 and read the parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable is an old friend that you have heard many times. However, it is so important that I often wonder if we should not read it every Sunday in worship, perhaps immediately after we say the Lord’s Prayer together.

Some notes from Kalas on this parable:

· As with most parables, this one was told in the give and take of conversation. In conversation with a group of people, Jesus answers the question of the lawyer.
· A “lawyer” in first century Israel was a theologian. The issue was not how to avoid arrest … but how to live the good life … how to obey the law as given in the first five books of the old testament
· The lawyer digested the law into two pieces: Love God, love your neighbor. This answer was not unique to him. This summary comes from verses in the book of Deuteronomy and these scriptures were probably in a small leather pouch that the lawyer, as a good Jew, wore on his person.
· Lawyer saw the wisdom of the answer, but he wanted to cut the requirements of the law down to manageable size. We can love some people without too much efforts, so the law will be much easier to manage if we restrict the definition of neighbor to just those people … or perhaps just those people and a few more.
· Discussion: How does this parable answer the lawyer’s question?
From the class members present: The parable extends the definition of neighbor to include all racial groups and religious groups and voided the significance of partitions by rank, social standing, and caste.

At this point, I think we have had a profound lesson. Each of us needs to be reminded daily of the truth that the parable holds.

Kalas’ twist: How did the good Jewish man who was mugged feel about being helped by the Samaritan, someone whom he had studiously avoided all of his life?

In order to help us get into the question that Kalas asks, Ed has rewritten the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In the midst of the retelling, you will find three blank spaces. Please refer to the answers you gave to the three questions a the beginning of class. Read Ed’s retelling three times, each time inserting one of the three names into all the blanks in the retelling.

Ed’s Retelling of the Good Samaritan:
I was hurrying though Forsythe Park one evening as twilight fell, and suddenly rough hands grabbed me. Before I could resist I had been struck on the head, I had been pummeled, my face had been beaten and slashed with a knife, my clothes had been half torn from me, my billfold/purse had been taken, and I had been half pushed into a big azalea bush. As I lay there half conscious, I would have chuckled except my broken ribs hurt too much. I looked for all the world like a drunk who had passed out in a public place or woman of the street who had been manhandled by a lover.

But then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pastor John coming, walking briskly through the park. I tried to call out but my tongue was thick with pain and blood from the broken teeth, and he seemed not to hear. At least, he sped up and slid to the far side of the sidewalk. It seemed hours later, but then I saw a familiar tall, skinny frame. It was old Ed, good old Ed. I surely was glad I had been in Sunday School the last few weeks. “Ed, Ed, I gurgled.” But Ed’s eyes looked frightened, and he kept his face forward, and he walked on past. Then I passed out.

Gentle hands were turning me over. A handkerchief was wiping blood from my face, and drops of water from a Dasani bottle were dribbled on my lips. Only after I had been loaded in the ambulance, did I realize that ________________ was sitting beside me in the ambulance. __________ patted my shoulder and said, “I found you in pretty bad shape. You are ok now. We will have you to the hospital in a minute.” I passed out again but when I awoke in the bed in the hospital, it was ____________ who was sitting beside me. “I have called and left messages on the answering machine at home and I am sure your family will join you soon. But even if they don’t get the message tonight, I will stay until through the night. If you need anything, let me know and I will work with nurse to get what you need.”

How did this exercise feel? Did you learn anything new about the parable by rereading it in the first person, using the names from our exercise at the beginning of class?

Kalas tells of running out of gas in a declining part of Cleveland and having to push his car to the curb. A man sees his difficulty and rushes out of the front door of a building whose faded signage reads, “Exotic Dancing till 2:00 am. Hot babes dance Topless, Bottomless and with Abandon.” The man, the proprietor of this establishment, proceeded to place a hose in his own gas tank, siphon gasoline out of the tank (including getting a mouthful of foul gasoline in the process), put the gas in Kalas’ tank, and then sent him on his way, refusing any attempt to pay.

As Kalas drove away, Kalas wondered why the person who helped him couldn’t have been someone with a bumper sticker that read, “Honk if you love Jesus” or a board member of the YMCA rushing to a meeting. Why did it have to be the proprietor of a “girlie” bar?

Kalas’ comment: I am sure that God has warm and gentle sense of humor. He so often sends blessings into our lives through unlikely channels, folks whom we would prefer to fence out of our lives and our experiences. And in that way, he will teach us, reluctant students that we are, that our definitions of our neighbors are surely not big enough.