Lenten Bible Study Day 10; Luke 10

Luke, Chapter 10 (NRSV)

We are now in the large middle section of Luke's Gospel. Jesus has turned toward Jerusalem and the teaching and events we are reading are meant to be seen in light of what will happen during the events of Triduum (Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Day.)

Late in this chapter we read the story of the Good Samaritan. After the story of the Prodigal Son this is probably the most well known parable, but there's more to it than first meets the eye. Actually, that's true of every parable that Jesus tells. Each is like one of those sets of Russian nesting dolls. You open one and find another one inside. Then you open that one and there's still another. Just when you think you understanding the meaning and intent of the story Jesus tells, you discover that by opening one meaning there's another one inside. Both are true. All of the meanings are true. The fact that the parables have multiple meanings and applications is part of their design.

As an aside, the medieval Church believed that this wasn't just true of parables. It was believed true of the entire Bible. There was the literal story that the biblical text was recounting. There was another layer of meaning that was a teaching about the nature of the Messiah, and then there was another layer of meaning that was a teaching about the pilgrimage of our souls as we journeyed to God. (And then, depending on who you were reading, there was a fourth and even a fifth layer of meaning.) The idea that the Bible had a simple, easily understood single meaning didn't arrive in the Church until later in the reformation - and that idea reached its full bloom in the latter part of the 19th century.

Take another look at the parable of the Good Samaritan. When I was a teenager our youth group put on a skit based on this story. The teen who acted out the part of the priest who passed by the bleeding, wounded samaritan acted as if he was too fussy to stop to offer aid. Then the teen who acted out the part of the Levite did the same. We in the audience did our part by booing the priest and the Levite and applauding the Samaritan who took action. But what if there's more to this story than we recognized?

A number of ancient readers pointed out that this all happened on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. The traveller is traveling away from Jerusalem. It's reasonable to think that the priest and the Levite were headed the other way along the road, which would mean they were heading toward Jerusalem and likely they were headed to the Temple to perform their required roles according the Law.

The Samaritan was bleeding. The commentators think that this explains the reason that the other two passed by on the other side of the road when they came upon the Samaritan. Contact with human blood would have defiled the priest and the Levite, making them ritually unclean and then unable to perform the saving sacrifices that the Law of Moses required of them. It wasn't (according to this view) that the two men were unwilling to render aid to the bleeding traveller, it was that they weren't allowed to by the Law of God.

It is the Samaritan who is outside of the Law, and even cursed according to the Law, who is able to save the person who is dying in the road.

There's a part of the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 21:22-23) that says anyone who is killed on a tree is cursed. Jesus was killed on a tree. Over the history of the Church this verse of the Law of Moses has been quoted to show that Jesus couldn't have been the Messiah - no one can save another person when the first is cursed in the eyes of God.

But this parable, understood in light of the ritual duties of the priest and the Levite, shows the opposite. It was only the person outside the Law of Moses who was able to save. In other words, God has used, and does use, people who are outside the gathered community of God to save the people of God. What might this mean in our day?