The Good Samaritan 2 - Luke 10:31-32

This poor guy, who we don’t know very much about, is robbed, beaten and left for dead along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. We’ve already discussed who he might be, way this was a dangerous stretch of highway, and what this man could have possibly gained spiritually by experiencing this trial. While he was thus laying, presumably unconscious, “by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.” Interestingly, an article posted on Bible.org reminds us that this parable comes right after Jesus prayed thanking God “that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes.” By this interpretation, the priest and Levite would be the “wise and intelligent” because they are supposed to be the experts on religious law, where as the Samaritan was a “babe” when it came to the ancient Jewish laws, yet the “babe” was the one who recognized his duty to his fellow man and the Priest and Levite tried to find a “loophole” to get out of their duties to another person.

The first individual to pass the injured man is a priest. I’ve read that because it is stated that the priest was there “by chance” that indicated that the priest was not an a highly important errand which would have prevented him form rendering aid. It’s also noted that the priest is also traveling away from Jerusalem, meaning that his service in the temple was completed for quite a while. An excellent article says that the priest was almost certainly riding a donkey that could have easily carried the injured man to safety. But the article also explains perhaps some of the priest’s reasons for not stopping to help, saying, “The problem was that he couldn’t tell who, or what nationality, the man was, since he was both unconscious and naked. The priest was under the duty of the Mosaic law to help a fellow Jew, but not a foreigner, and under the circumstances he couldn’t tell which the injured man was.” Just to add here that the IM contests that the Mosaic law obligated the man to stop and help, but the oral traditions of the corrupt Jewish leadership at the time had made it so that the obligation was only to help other Jews and that they had no obligation to anyone else. The IM says that this practice was wrong and inconsistent with the Mosaic gospel principles.

The article continues, “On top of it, the priest didn’t know if the man was dead or not, and according to the law, going near or touching a dead body would cause him to be ceremonially unclean. If he went closer than about two meters, and the man was dead, then the priest would be defiled, and it would require a week of religious rituals, including purchasing a sacrificial animal, to be purified. During that time he couldn’t collect or eat from any of the tithes, and neither could his family and servants. If the unconscious man was alive and the priest touched him, but then the man died shortly thereafter, the priest would have to rend, or tear, his clothes, meaning that he’d have to purchase new ones to replace them. So helping this unidentifiable man would have been costly for the priest, in the end he decided, for whatever reason, to pass by the man, staying on the other side of the road to make sure he kept the proper distance from him.” These are fascinating concepts that I had never considered. It’s not just an issue to selfishness or inconvenience, but there are substantial reasons that could have kept this man away. I’m not an expert on Mosaic law, but I wonder if these rituals of cleanliness or the rending of garments were actually part of the law handed down by Jehovah or if they were simply traditions turned into pseudo-doctrine over time. I am inclined to believe that much of it was simply tradition and that if that if the man died after making contact with the priest that the priest would not have been obligated to destroy his clothing, unless that’s part of the law of health. It seems like the use of a priest in the first example might be a commentary on what happens when we focus more on the letter of the law than the spirit of the law. By ensuring he stayed spiritually “clean” by avoiding contact with the injured man, the priest in fact significantly defiled himself spiritually by refusing to help.

Next comes a Levite, who also passes the injured man on the other side of the road. The article gives some background on this particular road saying that the geography is such that One is able to see the road ahead for a considerable distance most of the way. So it’s likely that when he (the Levite) came to the man in the road he realize the priest had earlier seen the man and passed by.” That’s an interesting development, what does that mean? The article points out that the Levite was still a higher lever religious scholar and leader, but “he wasn’t under the same purity laws as the priest.” So if the man was dead, the Levite wouldn’t have had to go through a purifying ritual to become clean again, and if the man died after the Levite had made contact with him, then the Levite would have been able to keep his clothing.

The article also points out that because the Levite was a lower social class than the priest, he was probably walking instead of riding a donkey, which means that he wouldn’t have been able to carry a mostly dead man anywhere. Without the means to move the man to safety, and assuming he didn’t have anything that  he could have stabilized the man with, he probably was just as afraid for his safety as anything else, as the article points out that anciently, traps were laid in this manner by the robbers trying to capture more prey. This really paints the Levite in a helpless light, he can’t fix the man, he can’t take him to safety, and he’s probably at risk of being attacked himself, so really what could he have done? I think that many times in our lives we are in this situation, where we feel obligated to help someone or do something, but we are limited in our ability to do so.

For instance, I really feel obligated to help members of the church who want to serve missions but can’t afford it, but with my resources, what can I do? I can’t single-handedly pay the monthly cost of every single person serving a mission, I honestly can’t even really pay the monthly cost for a single person. So what are my options? I can help when I see that I am able to, even when it stretches me kind of far, or when it’s in little ways. Perhaps all the Levite could have done was stop briefly, offer him some of his food and water, maybe give him a coat and then tell him that he’ll do his best to send help. It seems like that is all that he could do, with his limited knowledge and resources, perhaps he could have simply said something to the man so that the man would know that he was seen and that someone was doing all that they could to help him, even if that was simply to go and ask someone else to help him.

It wasn’t just the fact that the Levite didn’t have the means to really help this guy, there were also some social factors involved as well. Again, the injured man’s ethnicity was not readily apparent, so the Levite also would have been involved in caring for someone to whom he might not have felt obligated. Even if all the Levite could do was to go into town and ask someone to help the man, he would have also been asking them to help a man who was not known as Jew or gentile, friend or foe, the Levite would have had to stick his reputation on the line, or perhaps pull a few strings in order to convince someone to risk their own safety to help this guy. That’s a tricky social situation. The article also points out that if the Levite did in fact know that the priest had passed by the man without helping, and he himself stopped to help, it would have called into question the priest’s keeping of the laws. The article says, “No motive is given for his passing by, but it’s possible that knowing that the priest, who was more knowledgeable about the religious laws and obligations, did nothing, he assumed that it was best for him to do nothing as well. Taking action might have been interpreted as questioning the priest’s understanding of the law and might have been considered an insult to the priest.”

There are several different points that we can take away from the example of the Levite, and I just want to point out how interesting it is that Jesus simply mentioned a Levite passing by on the other side, and yet all this meaning comes with it. That’s why the Savior’s teachings are so profound and why in depth study is so important. The first take away point from the example of the Levite is that we can only do as much as we can do. Sometimes we are in a position to where we can make grand gestures and change people’s lives with our influence, but those situations are so uncommon in the day to day life of service. More often we are likely to encounter an opportunity to serve in a small way, such as a kind word, or a friendly ear, helping someone who is lost or lonely or tired, these are the things most of us are able to do most of the time.

The second take away point is that we need to be able to stand up for something even if someone else does not. Even if we believe that that person should have said or done something, we are not excused for our own negligence just because we thing someone else should have done something. This can be seen when we think, “I’m not going to give money for those kids to have Christmas presents because their family should be doing that for them.” Or something like “no I won’t bring you dinner even though you are sick because your husband should have taken care of it, or your mother or sister,” etc. It is so easy to pass our obligation onto others who we feel bear more responsibility, and usually not because we want to help the other person learn to serve, it’s almost always so that we can get out of doing it ourselves.

The last take away point is that we can not be intimidated by social repercussions to avoid doing what we ought to do. In essence, the Levite was valuing the reputation of the priest and his own safety over the life and health of the man who had been injured. It was an excuse, and even though it’s possible that the man still would have died even with the Levite’s complete but minimal help, that doesn’t change what should have happened. It’s easy for me to sit inside my nice place here, sitting in my nice chair after lunch and lecture that the Levite should have stopped to offer help when he was also likely to be attacked and robbed. But I would like to think that if presented the opportunity, I would take a reasonable amount of risk in order to help someone in need, even if the amount of help I was able to give would have been minimal.