Today's reading presents us with the parable of the Good Samaritan, familiar to every reader of the Gospel (vv. 25-37). This parable is often understood simply as a call to show mercy to everyone, regardless of social status, religious affiliation, or anything else that so often divides people. Yet the situation described in the parable is not so simple. The question asked by the “lawyer,” probably a teacher of the Torah, was: “Who is my neighbour?” In modern language, this distinction is usually expressed in terms of “our own” and “outsiders.” Jesus' interlocutor evidently understands “neighbour” in precisely this way: who is one of “my own”? Surely I cannot love everyone I happen to meet!

Without answering him directly, Jesus tells a parable about a devout man who had apparently suffered at the hands of Samaritans on the road from Jerusalem back to his own region (v. 33). In those days, the road from Galilee to Judea passed through Jericho, and Jews making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem had to pass through Samaria along the way; its inhabitants were generally extremely hostile to them. Most likely, it was they who attacked the lone traveller. The situation became utterly incredible: the beaten man's compatriots and fellow believers passed him by (vv. 31-32), while help came from the person from whom it could least be expected, a Samaritan (vv. 33-35). Thus his own people became outsiders, and an outsider became one of his own.

The point here is not assistance as such, or even mercy. It is relationships, without which there is no Kingdom: people's relationships with God and with one another. This is the meaning of the commandment that Jesus' interlocutor knew perfectly well (vv. 25-28). The relationships of the Kingdom cannot and must not be conditioned or limited by anything: they are unconditional and absolute, or there can be no question of the Kingdom. Having told His parable, Jesus called His interlocutor to build relationships with every person as if they were already dwelling in the Kingdom; otherwise, the way into it will never open.

The image of Martha and Mary has become a classic in Christian tradition, symbolizing two kinds of Christian service—the active and the contemplative—and at the same time establishing their priorities, for the Savior speaks quite unambiguously about what matters most in service. His words are usually understood as pointing to what Mary was doing as she listened to Jesus' words without being distracted for even a minute. Yet “one thing” and “many things” also allow a somewhat different interpretation. It is no accident that Jesus speaks of the “many things” as something that causes a person anxiety and distress—at least, that is what follows if the Greek text is read literally.

Martha busies herself with many things; she is constantly thinking about something that troubles her and deprives her of peace. She has no time to listen, not because she is occupied with household tasks, but because of this constant anxiety that robs her of inner peace. Her many tasks worry her precisely because she is wholly immersed in them: inwardly she rushes from one task to another, anxious that she will not have enough strength for everything she thinks she must do. It is her anxiety, not the number of tasks, that exhausts her so completely that she no longer has the strength to listen to the Savior.

There is only one way out, and Jesus points to it: leave the many for the one, for the central thing that sustains a person—a relationship with Him, with Jesus. When this relationship becomes the center and focus of a person's inner life, all outward affairs are also arranged around that center. The person is no longer scattered or fragmented into a multitude of self-projections connected with everyday tasks, but remains inwardly whole and gathered around the one thing that truly fills both the person and all his work with life.

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.