“There You Go” (Luke 10:25-37)

Rev. Christine Ng

         It’s almost become a cliché, this story. People who’ve never read the Bible or been inside a church have heard of a “Good Samaritan.” We all know what it means. But what struck me reading this scripture again this time was that all of the people in it are travelling. So, in addition to all the usual teachings in this text about helping other people, and who is our neighbor, I think it also has powerful things to tell us about the nature of our own journeys – the journeys we call life and faith.

         With the parable, of course, we get the traveler on the road going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, who is attacked by robbers. And the priest and Levite and Samaritan travelling the same road with him.

         But the parable is framed by another story, of Jesus telling this parable. Jesus is travelling too, making his way to Jerusalem, and the cross. He’s on his way to his death, when he meets a lawyer, who wants to know how to move toward life. He asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

         Now some see hostility in his words – a challenge to trap Jesus. But I hear something different – I hear someone who is also on a journey – a seeker on the road of faith, looking for what so many of us are looking for – a deeper intimacy with God, with the divine. And he seeks guidance on the path from Jesus. After all, how else are we to know the way to go if we don’t ask directions?

         But Jesus’ response reminds me of when I was in law school. It used to drive me crazy. When someone asked the professor a question, he or she would usually respond with another question – or sometimes by giving a hypothetical situation, and then asking a question.  Even after you responded to the professor’s question, sometimes you still didn’t get a straight answer.

         One of my favorite teachers was Prof. Morse, a true southern gentleman; white hair, suit and bow tie. When you asked a question, Prof. Morse would either ask you a question or simply say, “There you go.”

         All you could do was keep asking questions until you figured it out for yourself. The idea was to learn to think like lawyers, not just to memorize rules. But sometimes it was enough to make you want to tear out your hair. This approach was called “the Socratic method.”  But it’s obviously much older than Socrates, and not limited to law school, either.

         In one of his movies, I don’t remember which, Woody Allen asks, “Why does a rabbi always answer a question with a question?”  After a long pause, the rabbi replies, “Why shouldn’t a rabbi always answer a question with a question?” Ugh!

         Since I was trained as a lawyer, it should come as no surprise that I can identify with the lawyer in today’s text who asked Jesus questions, and got questions in return – and in the end was left with an answer that’s not much more satisfying than, “There you go.”

         I imagine the questions that may have come after Jesus said to “go and do likewise,” but that didn’t make it into the text.  Perhaps something like this:

         “But was it wrong for the priest and the Levite to pass by on the other side?  It could’ve been a trap.” – “There you go.”

         “But if they’d touched him and it turned out he was dead, they would be unclean and unable to perform their duties at the temple, right?” – “There you go.”

         “Two denarii! That’s 2 days’ wages.  Isn’t that too much to spend on someone you don’t even know?  What if you can’t afford that?” –  “There you go.”

         “Was the man a Jew, because if so, he shouldn’t be touched by an unclean Samaritan, right?” – “There you go.”

         When the lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” he wanted to know the narrow category of people he had to love to be within the law. Was it only Jews?  Or people from his town? He wanted a simple answer like that. But Jesus refused to play the lawyer’s game. 

         The thing about simple answers is that they are dead ends, they don’t move you any farther down the road. So when the lawyer responded to Jesus’ questions, Jesus didn’t just say, “Great answer.  Give that man a gold star.”  And he didn’t give his own interpretation, or boil the story down to a nice clear rule.  No.  He said, “Do this” and “Go and do likewise.” Replies that raise as many questions as they answer.

         “Do likewise?  What do you mean, do likewise?” – “There you go.”

          I think Jesus understood that we’re all traveling down the Jericho Road. We are all on a spiritual journey. Trying to get closer to God. Searching, seeking. But if we have all the answers, or think we do, then we wouldn’t need to leave the house.

         But Jesus is out there, on the road, and he’s always beckoning people to venture out – to follow him, to step out of the boat, to come and see, and then to go out among the people, as we saw last week when he sent out the 70.  So it should come as no surprise that he doesn’t give the lawyer simple answers, but instead asks questions that gently lead him a little further down the path. Because while Jesus can guide him, the lawyer’s steps must be his own. He has to figure it out for himself, and the answers must come from within.

Jesus didn’t condemn the priest and the Levite who saw the beaten man and passed him by. And he didn’t praise the Samaritan either. He just stated the facts and posed the question, “Which of the three was a neighbor to the man? Which of the three acted as a neighbor would act?” And he let the lawyer decide. And the lawyer, taking a few more steps along the road, says, “The one who showed him mercy.” 

Sometimes, I think we fall into the same trap as the lawyer. We want to reduce this story down to a simple rule, like “do good to others.” The priest and the Levite are bad. The Samaritan is – well – good. But I think there’s a lot more too it than that.

As one writer[1] put it, the parable of the Good Samaritan is a story for travelers on the road – a kind of scriptural GPS, routing us in the direction God desires – the way of love and compassion for others. It’s more than a parable about a helpful stranger; it’s about the transforming power of God at work in those who travel the sometimes dangerous roads of life and faith.

We are all traveling on the Jericho Road. I don’t think Jesus chose that road for his story arbitrarily. It’s a very steep road; twisting, and so narrow that in some places the traveler can’t see more than a few yards ahead. The going is hard and dangerous, with plenty of opportunities to fall, or to fall into the hands of robbers.

And so sometimes we want simple, clear answers that we can hold onto like a guide rope along the road – something to give us at least the illusion of safety, a feeling that we are in control of this journey. That’s what the lawyer wanted from Jesus – but that’s not what he got.

I think perhaps that’s also what happened with the priest and the Levite. Instead of asking questions, they clung too tightly to their simple answers about the law, about what they should and shouldn’t do – and missed meeting Jesus on the road with them, missed seeing him in the eyes of a stranger in the ditch.

While we may want to see ourselves in the Samaritan, the one who seems to have it all together, we know often we are not. At different times in our lives we can be all of them. Sometimes show the love and compassion of Christ, but sometimes we miss the mark; we’re the priest or the Levite – shying away from the hard questions, sticking with the simple answers, turning our heads away. 

And sometimes we’re the man lying in a ditch at the side of the road. Hurt, lost, near death, or simply needing help – unable to do anything but accept whatever may come. But it’s often easier to help others than to give up control and accept that help for ourselves. But we survive and progress on the journey of life and faith by helping each other along the way – recognizing that though we walk the road ourselves, as individuals, we also walk it in community.

And sometimes we are, or need to be the lawyer, willing to ask questions, to seek out the path that will lead us closer to God, to new life. One of my most deeply held beliefs is that we meet God in our questions – out there on our own road to Jerusalem.

As you travel your own Jericho Road, ask, “Who am I in this story? Who can I be a neighbor to? Priest, Levite, Samaritan, injured one? What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

There you go – and do likewise. Amen.

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[1] James A. Wallace, Feasting on the Word.