Orthodox readings for 27 November 2005

King James Version (en)

Ephesians, Chapter 2, verses 4-10

³ by nature, ⁵ with what we are by grace, ¹⁰ he declareth, that we are made for good works

⁴But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

⁵Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

⁶And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

⁷That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

⁸For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

⁹Not of works, lest any man should boast.

¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Luke, Chapter 10, verses 25-37

²⁵ magnifieth the happy estate of his Church; teacheth the lawyer how to attain eternal life, and to take everyone for his neighbour that needeth his mercy

²⁵And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

²⁶He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?

²⁷And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

²⁸And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

²⁹But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

³⁰And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

³¹And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

³²And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

³³But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,

³⁴And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

³⁵And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

³⁶Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

³⁷And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

NOTES

The parable of the Good Samaritan is perhaps one of the most widely quoted and often mentioned Gospel texts. This is not surprising: it is usually perceived as a call to mercy and good works, becoming the Gospel foundation for what in church practice has come to be called social ministry. Meanwhile, on closer reading everything turns out not to be so simple. Indeed, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan in answer to a question asked of Him: and who is my neighbor? If we follow the logic of the text of the parable, then the answer to the question asked of Jesus sounds quite specific: my neighbor is the one who helped me, who did good to me.

The demand "go and do likewise" sounds somewhat strange against this background: for in this case the issue is not how a person acts, but how others act toward him. The answer to the question asked is connected precisely with this. A transition from the text of the parable to a justification of works of mercy and, more broadly, social ministry is possible only through a semantic inversion: the reader must identify himself not with the traveler who suffered at the hands of robbers, but with the Samaritan who helped him.

Although the question itself was connected precisely with the suffering traveler: which of all of them turned out to be his neighbor? But then the Savior's answer is obviously connected not only with what the Samaritan did, but with the situation as a whole. And the parable becomes not simply a parable about kindness and helping one's neighbor; it turns out to be a parable about relationships between people. And about the primacy of these relationships. About a situation when help comes not from those who think alike or share the same faith, but from those from whom it would least be expected. From enemies, for Jews and Samaritans in those days were bitter enemies. And then it turns out that what in relationships had seemed decisive proves on examination to be meaningless tinsel.

That in a critical situation all social, national, and religious frameworks and ties suddenly prove to be conventions that oblige no one to anything. What becomes significant is something that lies deeper in the human person than all of this, at the depth where a person's true spiritual "I" is found. Only there, at this depth, are help, compassion, and mercy possible. On the surface there is nothing of the sort. There is only social ministry. It will, of course, keep a poor person from starving to death, but it will not give him love. Nor the life of the Kingdom.

Today I want to draw attention not to the parable of the Good Samaritan itself, about which very much has already been said and written, but to how Jesus answers...

The parable of the Good Samaritan is usually read as a story about how we should treat those who need our help...

FAQ

Reading the parable of the "Good Samaritan", where Jesus teaches about love for one's neighbor, I do not understand who the neighbor is? Whom should we love — the one who helps us, even if he is of a foreign "nationality", like the Samaritan — or is it every person who surrounds us? Should we love people from the perspective of the Samaritan or from the perspective of the traveler robbed by bandits?

From a practical point of view, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the most important thing is the distinction between what the scribe, who asks Christ about eternal life, understands by the word "neighbor," and what the Lord Himself understands. The scribe, quite in the spirit of ordinary human thinking, considers a neighbor to be the person who stands in a certain relationship to us. He expects in response a word that would belong in the same category as the concepts of "relative, friend, neighbor, fellow countryman, coreligionist." The necessity of helping those who are near us is repeatedly spoken of in the Holy Scriptures of both the New and, especially, the Old Testament.

It must be said that the position of the Old Testament law on this issue is quite exalted; it requires doing good to everyone, from relatives to refugees, whom it calls strangers in our land. And yet, the Old Testament consciousness does not differ in this from the mindset of all people. It assumes the existence of ever-widening concentric circles of people who are located closer or further from oneself. In the proper sense of the word, a person, including an Old Testament person, considers relatives and friends as neighbors. We are ready to treat them with all goodwill, even with love. "Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" asks the Lord ( 5:47).

However, the Old Testament, compared to pagan beliefs and customs, significantly expands this circle. Not only relatives and neighbors, but also completely unknown fellow countrymen must be considered neighbors. Even a slave and a disenfranchised stranger are also human beings, therefore you must treat them humanely, that is, as your neighbors. Thus, the Old Testament brings the answer to the question: "who is my neighbor" to its limit: "any person who happens to be nearby."

The Lord, however, concludes the parable of the Good Samaritan with a counter-question to the scribe: "Which of these three proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers" ( 10:36). The Synodal translation in this verse is somewhat approximate. The Greek text contains not the verb "to be", but the verb "to become, to be born, to be made". The Lord is saying that you became a neighbor to a person because he is in need of your help.

It is not a matter of a relationship of closeness or kinship, but of a relationship of need for another person. Moreover, He emphatically reverses the concept: it is not that the one who fell among robbers became a neighbor to one of the three travelers — this would be quite in the spirit of the Old Testament; on the contrary, one of them became a neighbor to him. Thus, at the center of the circles defining the concept of "neighbor," the Lord places not you, but the other, the one who needs you. A neighbor, therefore, is not the one to whom you would like to give something. A neighbor is not even the one to whom you could give something. A neighbor is the one who needs you.

And here it is important to remember how the Apostle Paul calls those who have believed "fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" ( 2:19). We become neighbors to God because we need Him. And He invites us to define a neighbor exactly as He Himself does, that is, to follow His path, to be like Him.

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