The journey from Jerusalem down to Jericho is only 18 miles, but in that short trip the elevation drops three thousand two hundred feet. Jerusalem, while very dry by our standards, receives about 20 inches of rain each year and has a pleasant Mediterranean climate, but Jericho gets less than 8 inches of rain each year and sits in a desolate wilderness.
Jericho was built around an oasis of natural springs and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. Jericho also had the first known protective wall to wrap around an entire city, and it was at Jericho that Joshua led the children of Israel across the River Jordan into the Land of Promise and, with the Ark of the Covenant, brought down that wall.
To get from Jerusalem to Jericho, the traveler first crosses the Mount of Olives and then passes by Bethany - home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary - before beginning the long, steep descent into the desert. And as one follows the ancient road away from Jerusalem, the vegetation gradually ceases and all human habitation with it, so that by the halfway mark the traveler is, even today, in a lonely wasteland. Knowing these details of climate and landscape can help us understand today’s Gospel and one of the most compelling parables of the Lord Jesus.
But before we examine the parable, one more point is essential. In the time of Christ and for centuries before, Jews and Samaritans hated each other with passionate intensity. Each considered the other to be loathsome and contemptible, and on the rare occasion when they were in proximity, they would both insist on the least possible contact, preferring not to speak with or even look at each other.
This bitter enmity went back to the return of the children of Israel from the Babylonian Captivity when some members of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh settled between Judea and Galilee in the territory of Samaria. There they began to marry with locals who were not Jews, which led them over time to accept foreign doctrines and customs that separated them from those who kept the Law of Moses.
This departure from the faith of their fathers caused observant Jews to regard Samaritans as heretics, traitors, and public sinners, and Samaritans returned the contempt with equal ferocity. This is the among the reasons why Jews traveling between Judea and Galilee went along the Jordan and the Jericho Road rather than take the direct route through Samaria. So now let’s look at today’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
Saint Luke tells us that a scholar of the Law of Moses asked a question of Jesus, not in order to learn from him but to test him. In fact, the question was a trap meant to embarrass Jesus. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus answered this question with his own question: “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” In reply the scholar quoted the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And then the Lord Jesus confirmed the lawyer’s answer: “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But then came the trap.
The lawyer retorted “And who is my neighbor?” Again, Luke tells us the scholar’s motive: he wished to justify himself, meaning that this man was self-righteous and held Jesus in contempt. Even the scholar’s use of the title teacher in addressing Jesus was disingenuous because he did not recognize the Lord Jesus as an authentic rabbi, and the Savior knew this full well. So, the lawyer wanted to embarrass Jesus by cleverly turning the Law of Love against him, but Christ evaded that trap by teaching him the true meaning of divine love with a parable.
“A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” Everyone who heard Jesus speak these words was a Jew, and the man on the road in the parable would also of course have been a Jew. The robbers “stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.” Those listening to Jesus knew this road intimately and were well acquainted with the real dangers of that journey, so they understood that anyone in this man’s circumstances was beyond all hope.
Jesus continued: “A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw (the victim) he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.” Remember that Levi was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and that Moses and Aaron were of the tribe of Levi. The male descendants of Aaron were called to be kohanim, priests of the Temple set apart to offer sacrifice to God, and the Levites, also descendants of Levi but not of Aaron, assisted the priests in fulfilling their Temple duties.
So in this parable, the Lord Jesus is saying that two men whose entire lives were dedicated to the worship of the one true God did nothing for this dying and abandoned wretch, a man of their faith, kith, and kin whom they should have recognized as one of their own. But why would the priest and Levite have treated the brutalized man in this way?
One possible answer is that according to the Law, touching a dead body made one ritually unclean, and so a priest who had contact with someone dead or even bloody and dying was unable to fulfill his duties in the Temple without first undergoing a time-consuming and expensive ritual cleansing.
Another plausible reason is that the priest and Levite on the desert road were both keenly aware of their location and the real danger of falling victim themselves to the same robbers who beat this miserable man now dying in the ditch.
A third possible explanation is that these men, though theoretically religious, were simply so self-absorbed that they were without basic human kindness. But whatever their motive, they were not moved with pity for the abandoned man and so they just kept moving. And then the Lord Jesus came to the central point.
“A Samaritan traveler who came upon (the victim) was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him.” In other words, only the despised foreigner, the hateful heretic, fulfilled the Law of Love with selfless generosity while the two pious children of Israel left the poor wretch to die alone in the desert. But it doesn’t stop there.
“The next day (the Samaritan) took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction: Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.”
The victim of the robbers was a both a complete stranger to the Samaritan and, as a Jew, should have been an untouchable object of contempt. And yet the divine Law of Love moved the hated Samaritan to sacrificial selflessness, and so Jesus asked the self-righteous scholar: Which of these three men was neighbor to the victim of violence?
The self-absorbed lawyer, now placed on the spot by the man he meant to embarrass, was confronted with the simple truth of love in action. Which of these three was true neighbor to the victim? The one, he replied, who treated the brutalized man with mercy. And so the Lord Jesus completed the lesson: “Go, and do likewise.”
Many of the Fathers of the Church read this parable as an allegory in which Jerusalem stands for heaven, and Jericho is a figure of the fallen world. The beaten man on the journey is Adam and every man in Adam, and we all fall victim both to the sins of others and to our own sins, a moral collapse caused by our Fall from grace which leaves us wounded and as good as dead.
All human effort is insufficient to rescue the man who is lost in sin, and not even the Law and the Prophets symbolized by the priest and Levite, can save the lost soul. That is why we need a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
And so this lost man needed Christ Jesus, represented here by the Samaritan. We all need Christ to lift us up and lead us to the inn, a type of the Church, where we will be restored to life and to communion with other people rather than be abandoned alone in a desolate waste. The innkeeper is a figure of the apostolic office in the Church, and the man’s healing begins when Christ the Good Samaritan pours oil and wine onto his wounds, signs of the sacraments which are the ordinary means of grace for our salvation.
Whether or not such an allegory speaks to us today, we can surely place ourselves in the mind of the scholar who wanted eternal life but who in his arrogant pride could not understand the meaning of the Law of Love and the path of mercy it demands of us. And, friends, we are so often like that lawyer, or like the priest and Levite in the parable, in the way we think of and treat other people, effectively excluding them from human community.
Perhaps we hold in contempt our political enemies or professional rivals. Perhaps we despise immigrants or the homeless. Perhaps our hearts are hardened against people of other races, religions, languages, or cultures. Perhaps we reject anyone we find difficult to understand because of their personalities, sexual friendships, strange appearance, substance abuse, or odd beliefs.
But while we must often disagree with the opinions of others, and while we must always reject any behavior that is contrary to the eternal moral law and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we must never hate the persons who are strange to us, or with whom we disagree, or who are lost in sin. We must never exclude them from the human community, even in the hidden chambers of our hearts.
Like the scholar who questioned the Lord Jesus, we are all tempted to find ways to excuse ourselves from the demands of the Law of Love, but the parable of the Good Samaritan confirms for us what Moses taught the children of Israel in our first lesson today from Deuteronomy: “this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky or across the sea. No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.”
But given our weaknesses, how do we find the strength to carry out the Law of Love? By hearing and heeding the Word of God, by being freed of our sins through the grace of constant conversion, by surrendering to God’s mercy in the liberating obedience of faith, and by being united in the sacraments to the saving power of the divine Redeemer of the world. For he is the Word made flesh and the great high priest of the New and Eternal Covenant: the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the text of my homily for 13 July 2025, the 15th Sunday of the Year.
Fr Jay Scott Newman