NL 331: Good Samaritan (and Mary & Martha) - Luke 10:25-42
image: “The Good Samaritan” by Vincent van Gogh (Vanderbilt Divinity Library- Shared through Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 License)
February 21, 2021
Luke 10:25-37
Initial Thoughts
"How do we preach on the same texts we’ve preached on many times before, perhaps to the very same congregation? That’s our situation this Sunday. My advice is: never look back on your old sermons. Preach this text to these people and to our times. Your people likely won’t remember what you said before anyway.” (Michael Rogness, Working Preacher)
Bible Study
Literary Context
Jesus is still with the 72 (or 70) who have just returned from their mission. There is no setting break before a legal expert asks this question.
Was this legal expert one of the 70?
Four questions
Legal Expert: “What must I do to have eternal life?”
“It is not just about ensuring that one gets to heaven and not hell. It is the whole matter and purpose of life itself. This is a “what is the meaning of life?” or “what is the chief end of humanity?” sort of question.” (Left Behind and Loving It)
What can you do to inherit eternal life?
You don’t do anything to get an inheritance - you simply receive it because of who you are. This is the same with eternal life, as a child of God and by the grace of God you are invited to live fully
Jesus: “What is written? What do you read?”
“What has been written?” and “How do you read?” Together they imply that the Scriptures are living texts of interactive possibility. They are not, on the one hand, stagnant words that simply say what they say to whoever reads. Nor are they empty pages onto which we can pour opinions willy-nilly. (Left Behind and Loving It)
The legal expert actually gives the answer “Love God, and love neighbor as yourself.”
This answer is not new - other Rabbis felt and expressed similar ideas on the most important commandments
Quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18
Is this justification by works?
No. Again you cannot earn eternal life.
“As Paul enunciates, the problem is not the law, the problem is that we cannot keep it (Rom. 7:13-20). Here the standard set by Jesus eludes our finest efforts.” Kenneth Bailey
We cannot hope to live up to the standard to loving God continually - which is why we need grace. However, to rely on grace as an excuse to not love God, neighbor, and self cheapens grace.
Legal Expert: “Who is my neighbor?
“Who do I need to love?” Is my neighbor the “sons of your own people” (Leviticus 19:18) or “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as a native among you” (Leviticus 19:34)?
Jesus flips the question.
The answer to “Who is my neighbor” prompts the longer response. Jesus tells a story about three men. Then asks the fourth question, “Which of these men were the neighbor?”
“I think we would do well to invite our people to wonder whom we see as neighbor and whom we overlook. In many ways, we are as clan-oriented as those in Jesus’ original audience. Most often, we look out first for our immediate and then extended family, and then close friends, and then those who are most like us or share our values or associations. Like the priest and Levite, we tend to overlook and avoid those who are different from us.” (David Lose, Working Preacher)
Three men pass by
Priest saw, and passed by on the other side.
Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes p. 284-297
Many of the priests in the 1st century lived in Jericho and were known to be wealthy. If it were a priest, he would not have been traveling by foot, but would have been riding - and thus able to give the Jewish victim transportation to safety.
“Then as now various ethnic communities in the Middle East are identified by their clothes, their language or their accent...the priest had a special problem. The wounded man beside the road was unconscious and stripped. If the victim was a fellow Jew, and especially a law-abiding Jew, the priest would have been responsible to reach out and help him, but this victim was naked and unconscious, so how could anyone be sure of his ethnic-linguistic identity? No doubt, the priest wanted to do his duty under the law. But what was his duty?” p.292
Not as simple as it sounds. If the man were dead or a Gentile, it would make the priest unclean. If the man were alive but later died the priest would have been obliged to rend his robes. If the priest became defiled and tried to serve at the altar in a state of uncleanliness, he could be killed - simply for being accused of being unclean. p. 293
Levite came by, and crossed to other side.
Levites were assistants to the priests and may have been an assistant to the priest who passed by earlier
The priest has established precedent - who is a Levite to challenge a priest?
“Could the Levite ride into Jericho with a wounded man whom the priest, in obedience to this understanding of the law, had opted to ignore? Such an act would be an insult to the priest!” p.293
Both called to a duty.
Not evil men, just had competing ideas of duty.
Must allow listeners to hear themselves in these two, and cannot do it if we paint them too negatively.
Samaritan came to him, and was moved to compassion.
Break in the natural progression - we had a priest, then a Levite - next should be a Jewish layperson - shocking that it is a Samaritan
Two men were moved to revulsion, separation, apathy.
One man was moved to compassion
Compassion is key to neighborliness.
Not about cleanliness
“Contrary to one popular view, the priest and Levite do not bypass the injured man because of ritual purity concerns. Tobit and Josephus demonstrate the strong Jewish concern for the respectful treatment of the dead. While Leviticus 21 forbids priests from touching corpses save the bodies of immediate relatives, [Talmudic teaching] insists even ‘a high priest or Nazirite… may contract uncleanness because of a neglected corpse.’ Levites are not forbidden from contact with corpses. Further suggesting that the issue is not purity: the priest is not going up to Jerusalem, where impurity would have prevented him from participating in the Temple service, but ‘down from’ the city.” (Amy Jill-Levine, Jewish Annotated New Testament, p. 136)
Instead, the men were emblematic of three “types” of Jewish people. There were Priests who were descended from Aaron. There were Levites who were descended from Levi. There were Israelites, who were descended from Jacob, but not Levi. “Mention of the first two anticipates mention of the third. The parable shocks by making the third person not the expected Israelite but the unexpected Samaritan, the enemy of the Jews.” (Amy Jill-Levine, Jewish Annotated New Testament, p. 136)
“In modern terms, this would be like going from Larry and Moe to Osama bin Laden.” (Amy Jill-Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, p. 103)
Why did the pass by?
“The best explanation I’ve heard for the refusal of the priest and the Levite to come to the aid of the man in the ditch comes from Martin Luther King Jr, who preached: ‘I’m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It’s possible these men were afraid… And so the first question that the priest [and] the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”... But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question, “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him.”’ King went on, ‘If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ King then went to Memphis, and it was there he was assassinated. There are bandits on the road.” (Amy Jill-Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, p. 102)
What about justice?
“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”- Martin Luther King Jr. Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City
The Faith Forward blog asks a good question: What if the Good Samaritan found another man along that road the next day? And the next? Would he begin to look at why that area was beset with violence? Would he try to stir the powers that be to do something about the crime and poverty in the area? Or would he just keep fixing the wounds, keep giving money to the inn keepers and allowing the thieves to prosper?
“While the Parable of the Good Samaritan provides a wonderful lesson in response to a specific question (“Who is my neighbor?”), we are left wondering how to advance life-giving communities alongside our neighbors. For example, while people of faith are often spectacular at following the Good Samaritan model of providing relief in times of crisis, we too often fail at the long-term work that is necessary for lasting social justice.”
Thoughts and Questions
Two quotes from Rev. Fred Rogers, who knew a little something about neighbors.
“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” Fred Rogers
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”’
The important question is not about eternal life. That one gave a simple answer - one that Jesus didn’t even need to supply. What is the “Greatest Commandment” in Matthew, just common sense in Luke. The important question is “Who is my neighbor?” This answer becomes the basis for Jesus’ answer, which is also based in the Torah:
Leviticus 19:18, 33-34 “… you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD… When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
The reason we should love our neighbor, the alien, and the stranger is always the same: “I am the Lord your God.” Love others because God. Not “because God said so,” but because God loves them.
Luke 10:38-42 Mary and Martha
Initial Thoughts
Immediately follows last week’s reading - The Parable of the Good Samaritan - and precedes the Lord’s Prayer- look for the connections
Bible Study
Immediately follows last week - so who is present? Jesus and his “disciples”
Who are the Disciples? Not necessarily the 12, but could easily include the 72!
Puts Martha’s aggravation in context
“Martha is overwhelmed at serving Jesus and his entourage (the text begins with the plural, ‘the continuing of them’). The language of this story amps up the volume a lot. Martha is having what looks like a panic attack. Not one that is rooted in a chemical imbalance or disorder, but one that is evoked by the overwhelming expectations she is facing as the host who is welcoming Jesus and his people. She may be on the verge of losing it. She certainly sees what she is doing as a struggle and she feels completely alone in it. Until we sympathize with the genuine challenge that Martha is facing, the internal ‘riot’ that she is experiencing, then we will only dumb down this story into “Martha, Martha” as a condescending pat on the head. She’s a wreck because she is trying to respond well to what Jesus has put before her. That’s the kind of stormy anxiety that we have to identify with in Martha. I’m not saying that we have to become Martha in all of her anxiety before we can fully appreciate Mary’s sitting. I am saying that we have to appreciate Martha’s position before we critique Martha. She really is panicking about the many things. Jesus does not say that she is irrational or wrong-headed. He merely says that he will not stop Mary from her sitting and hearing.“ (Mark Davis, Left Behind and Loving It)
The issue is not between the contemplative listener and the dutiful activist
It is about doing what is needed in the moment
sometimes we need to listen - Mary
sometimes we need to act - Good Samaritan
Rachel Held Evans - This passage is used to pit women against each other, as if there is a choice that needs to be made.
“If we censure Martha too harshly, she may abandon serving altogether, and if we commend Mary too profusely, she may sit there forever. There is a time to go and do; there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which and when is a matter of spiritual discernment.” (Craddock, Interpretation Series)
Being in the moment - focusing on God in our midst above duty and routine
Jesus not indicting hospitality - or even Martha.
“In this light, it would be difficult to imagine that the authorial audience understood Jesus’ praise of Mary to be an implicit criticism of Martha’s hospitality (a point underscored by the repetition of Martha’s name, an example of conduplicatio, a rhetorical device used to indicate compassion or pity).1 Of course, Jesus had the capacity to level such criticism, as we see in the story of one Simon the Pharisee, who fails to follow proper hospitality protocols” (Mikael Parsons, Working Preacher)
Breaking down social barriers to do what is needed.” Women were not allowed to sit at the feet of teachers, but Martha does because that is what was needed at that moment.
“According to Jesus, hearing the word of God’s messenger is the one thing needed, not providing for his physical needs (also Luke 8:15, 21). Thus, however important hospitality is in Luke as a social context for the spread of the Christian message, it is even more important to have followers who attend to Jesus’ messengers. The saying is less a condemnation of Martha’s frenzied activity and more a commendation of Mary’s posture as a disciple.” (Mikael Parsons, Working Preacher)
Faith is not about being the perfect host- which Martha is - it is about being open to relationship
Hospitality is more than invitation into the house- it is invitation into the soul
A willingness to listen and be changed by that relationship
“Activism without contemplation ends in aimless "doing" that usually aggravates existing difficulties...On the other hand, only the unthinking could fail to recognize the myriad ways in which thought—including very serious biblical, theological, and other scholarship—regularly serves the duplicitous purposes of those who, their rhetoric notwithstanding, simply do not wish to ‘get involved.’” Douglas John Hall, Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16).
Triangulation
Martha is not focused on being hospitable or serving, she is focused on what her sister is not doing
Martha does not address the issue directly to Mary, but instead triangulates with Jesus who refuses to participate.
Thoughts and Questions
Do we focus on good programs or “preaching the Gospel”?
“Preach the Gospel at all times—if necessary use words.” - St. Francis of Assisi
“A church that has been led to be "worried and distracted by many things" (v. 41) inevitably will be a community that dwells in the shallows of frantic potlucks, anxious stewardship campaigns, and events designed simply to perpetuate the institution. Decisions will be made in meetings without a hint of God's reign. Food and drink will appear at table without Christ being recognized in the breaking of bread. Social issues may be addressed, but the gospel is missed in acts that partake of politics as usual.” - Cynthia A Jarvis, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16).
Triangulation is a big problem in many churches- this is a great opportunity to address it
Not about refusing to hold others’ accountable, but addressing issues directly
see Matthew 18 and Luke 6
Rachel Held Evans’s blog “Accidental Feminist” is not directly about Mary and Martha, but about how a deeper reading of the Bible and the Gospel in particular led her into feminism. It is a good read for this week, even if it is not an exegetical piece about this text.
Opening music: Misirlou, One Man 90 Instruments by Joe Penna/MysteryGuitarMan at MIM
Closing Song by Bryan Odeen