By Richard Clifford, S.J.

The Good Samaritan is so familiar that it takes a bit of work to see it afresh. “Good” and “Samaritan” in Jesus’ day would never have been used in the same sentence! Judaean Jews despised Samaritans as semi-Jews. So, how did someone so despised end up being called “good,” and by a Jewish legal scholar?

It all began with a question from a lawyer, a scholar of the Torah of Moses. Jews everywhere revered the Torah as authoritative on how to live. However, in this instance, the lawyer did not come to hear Jesus, but to test him and determine whether he lived according to the law of the Torah. So he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tosses the question back. “What is written in the Law?” The lawyer recites the commandments, “You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbor as yourself.” “Do this, and you shall live,” responds Jesus to the lawyer.

In the Mosaic Law, “neighbor” meant fellow Israelite. So the lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” hoping to catch Jesus softening the Law. But instead of defining “neighbor,” Jesus tells him a parable that draws the hearer into the world of the Samaritan, left half-dead by robbers at the side of the road. A priest and then a Levite pass by, see the wounded man, and cross to the other side of the road. They see that the man is dying, and they don’t want to defile themselves by touching a corpse. That’s in the Law.

A third person comes. What did a hearer expect the third person to be? Perhaps a Jewish layperson, not bound by the purity rules that bound the priest and the Levite. No, it is a despised Samaritan. One would expect such a man would certainly cross to the other side of the road. However, the Samaritan does something shocking. He stops, provides immediate medical assistance, carries him to an inn, and promises future care from his own funds.

Jesus carefully phrases his question to force the lawyer to adopt the viewpoint of the wounded traveler rather than the Law: “Which of the three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robber’s victim?” The lawyer has no choice but to reply, “the one who treated him with mercy.” He avoids the word “Samaritan.”

Something had to change in the exchange—the definition of ‘neighbor’. The proper answer to the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” is not a new definition of “neighbor,” but rather imitating the hospitality shown by the despised foreigner who broke through ethnic prejudices to help a fellow human being in distress. “The concept of ‘neighbor’ shifts from being a tag that I may or may not apply to another, to being a quality or vocation that I take upon myself and actively live out.” (Brendan Byrne, The Hospitality of God, 101).

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.