by CCW | 6 September 2020 08:00
Audio File of Matins & Ante-Communion for Trinity 13[1]
The Christian ethic of compassion is illustrated most profoundly in the familiar parable of the so-called ‘Good’ Samaritan, so-called because the word, ‘good’, actually doesn’t appear in the text but rightly belongs to its meaning and interpretation. We take it for granted, perhaps, and don’t always appreciate its deeper and more radical meaning. “Go and do thou likewise” is our usual and immediate take-away but without realizing just what that means. In the illusions of our pragmatism and over confidence in practical matters, we oppose the practical to the theoretical and miss the nature of their necessary interrelation and reciprocity. As such our practical activities are often as not more like the distractedness of Martha as opposed to the collectedness of Mary.
A corrective to our simplistic approach to the parable of the Good Samaritan may be found in thinking about the connection between it and what follows immediately upon it in Luke’s Gospel here in Chapter 10. What follows is the story of Martha and Mary, a story which illuminates for us the reciprocity between action and contemplation which is so easily overlooked when considering the parable by itself. Yet the parable is set within a powerful ethical consideration about the understanding of the Law in its profoundest sense as God’s will for our humanity, our good in its deepest meaning. Thus Mary’s better part corresponds to the question and answer between Jesus and “a certain lawyer” about our reading and understanding of the Law.
“A certain lawyer”, “a certain man”, “a certain Samaritan.” The repetition of the word ‘certain’ is suggestive. It is the language of fable and myth but with an ethical purpose. The certain man and the certain Samaritan belong to the parable which is told in relation to Jesus’ encounter with a certain lawyer. In a way, these are all types or symbols. Jesus is being put to the test about the purpose and meaning of the Law.
The question asked to test him is “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The question, even in the hostility of the encounter, reveals something profound about the Law. It is not simply about the ordering of our practical and worldly affairs; somehow it belongs to our life with God in his eternity and to our end with God. This brings out the implicit universality of the Law. Thus readings which pit Jew against Christian in the interpretation of the parable are limited readings. Jesus’ questioning response brings out the deeper and more radical truth of the Law. His immediate question in response to the “certain lawyer,” who is symbolic of the tensions and questions within late Judaism about the ethical extent and meaning of the law, is precisely about “what is written in the law” and about how we read or understand what is written. Ultimately, it results in the exchange out of which comes the parable as the illustration of the true understanding of the Law in its purpose and intent.
The parable, I would suggest, needs to be seen within the framework of the question about the law and our reading, on the one hand, and Jesus’ response to Martha that Mary has chosen the better part, on the other hand. In other words, the parable about compassion is really about how that is grounded in contemplation; action and contemplation complement one another. Our actions have their fullness of meaning in the perfecting action of contemplation which is about the end of our actions without which they are destructive and dangerous. Our pre-occupations with so-called practical activity distract us from their true worth and meaning which can only be grasped through the activity of contemplation. That is the true ground of our activity. Our practical activity, in other words, has its end and purpose in God. The love of God is the moving force in our love of one another, the stranger who is neighbour because of our common humanity embraced by God.
The parable is unmistakably allegorical. That cannot be ignored though there are some dangers in the classical interpretation which tends to see the parable as pitting Jews against Christians. A closer look might reveal that Jesus is highlighting the prophetic critique of Israel’s failure to attend to the Law, not in a failure of the Law itself. Priest and Levite pass by the one who is wounded and half-dead on the roadside, to be sure, in contrast to “a certain Samaritan”. There can be no doubt that Jesus is criticizing Israel with respect to a too limited understanding of the Law. In a number of instances in the Gospels, Jesus uses the Samaritans, outsiders within Israel, we might say, to criticize a narrow and misguided view of the Law. To put it in another way, the “certain Samaritan” embodies the truth of the Law in its fullness and meaning. It has to do with the good of our humanity. That turns ultimately upon Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law; the love that is the fulfilling of the Law is Jesus, in the Christian view. He is, in the classical interpretation of the parable, the Good Samaritan. To “go and do likewise” is about the love of God fulfilled in Christ moving in us; the better part is about our attention to Christ so that he lives in us and we in him. How we read is about how our actions read out God’s Word towards others in our lives and actions.
Allegorically speaking, the parable is about the human condition, about the Fall and human redemption, and about the care and life of the Church. “A certain man,” is our humanity. Going down “from Jerusalem to Jericho” means going from the heavenly city to the earthly city; a going away from truth and goodness. He “fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” Such is the meaning of the Fall in which we discover nakedness, suffering, and death through sin. That is the great insight of Genesis. But in the Jewish and Christian understanding that marks the beginning of the story of redemption to which the Law and Christ belong.
“A certain Priest” and “likewise a Levite” “pass by”; they see our humanity in its distress but do nothing. The classical reading of the Fathers tends to view this as a failure of the Law itself rather than as a failure of the upholders of the Law to act upon its meaning. After all, Jesus has drawn out of the “certain lawyer,” the classic summary of the Jewish understanding of the Law, the Shema, or what we call in our Liturgy “the Summary of the Law.” It is all there in the Torah as the lawyer himself is obliged to recognise, moved by the truth itself, we might say, precisely by the rather Socratic nature of Jesus’ words. In other words, in passing by they fail to act out of the Law. It is the “certain Samaritan” who shows its true meaning which is the grace of the law. Ultimately, that is realized in the story of Jesus which embodies to the fullest extent the compassion of God in and through the Law.
The actions of the “certain Samaritan” symbolize the redemption of our humanity in Christ. First, “he came where he was.” Such is the Incarnation. And why? “And, when he saw him, he had compassion on him.” A most powerful phrase. It signals the radical nature of the goodness of God and that goodness as coming to us seeking our good. “He went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and took him to an inn, and took care of him.” For the Fathers of the Church such actions are symbolic of the sacramental ministry and mission of the Church as the body of Christ. Oil and wine are symbolic of the healing sacraments of baptism and communion in the life of the Church symbolized here as the inn in which we are cared for. His own beast is Christ’s own body. What is important in such a reading is the matter of intent, the contemplative purpose which informs practical activity.
“And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said, unto him, Take care of himl; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.” The two pence are taken to refer to the sacraments of baptism and communion as being the means of our abiding in the care and compassion of God in whom our humanity has its end and purpose. All these images point to the fulfillment and true meaning of the Law, not its abrogation. To attend to the parable is to attend to the words of Christ. The attentiveness of Mary is the corrective to the distractenness of Martha.
Martha is distracted, Luke tells us, by much busyness. So are we. Her distractedness is, literally, an inability to focus, an inability “to quiet her eye,” as the theologian John S. Dunne notes (Love’s Mind); in short, to attend. Contemplation, he suggests, quoting Proust, is itself “a kind of learning to love.” Nothing speaks more profoundly to our culture of distraction. In the face of the uncertainties and fears of Covid-19, the therapeutic culture would bid us find distractions; the exact opposite of the wisdom of contemplative philosophy and religion. It is all about facing the fallen realities of our world and not trying to escape them. Such is the much more radical meaning of Christ’s compassion, itself the compassion of the Law. Such is the dramatic power of Christ’s concluding question to the Lawyer, couched in the language of the Law. “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” Note the “thinkest thou”. You have to think it in some way or another in order to do it. The thinking moves in the acting. The lawyer who sought to test and to challenge Jesus is compelled by the truth moving in his thinking to say, “he that showed mercy on him.” Only then does Jesus bid him and us, “Go and do thou likewise.” It can only happen through our attending to the better part, “sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his teaching”. Such is our redemption and life in God.
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 13, 2020
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2020/09/06/sermon-for-the-thirteenth-sunday-after-trinity-7/
Copyright ©2026 Christ Church unless otherwise noted.