Commentary on Luke 10:25-42

Where to begin with such an embarrassment of riches? Seen from one angle, the parable of the Samaritan showcases the style of our narrator, particularly when they slow down the narrative to “show” mercy (verses 34–35): the New Revised Standard Version uses 42 words to describe the priest’s and Levite’s reactions to the person on the side of the road and 87 words to show us what being a good neighbor looks like.

Of course, no responsible interpretation of this text can treat it as a generic illustration of how to be a good neighbor, or the way in which a “stranger” can sometimes surprise us with unexpected kindness. Jesus chose to illustrate the love of neighbor through a Samaritan. But why?

Steven Fine, professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University, gives us perspective on the Samaritan and the people who are called by that name even today. According to Fine, the familiar namesakes of this story—for example, “Good Samaritan Laws” and “Samaritan hospitals”—belie the deep-seated religious hostility toward the Samaritans and their struggle to survive prejudice. “The story,” writes Fine, “is not just about helping a stranger but also helping and being helped by someone who looks like an enemy.” Today, Mount Gerizim Samaritans are the only people to hold both Palestinian and Israeli identity cards. “Samaritans are not Jews or Arabs,” he writes. “They are both and neither—all at the same time.”¹

When Jesus asks the expert lawyer who was a “neighbor” to the person who had been beaten up and left to die, the lawyer can’t quite bring himself to say it: “The one who had mercy on him” (verse 37). The lawyer’s muted response to Jesus’ question shows just how difficult this is to hear—for any of us.

Luke’s parable of the Samaritan could stand on its own, but this reading links it to the story of Martha and her sister Mary (38–42). These two texts (the Samaritan, who is held up as a model, and Martha, who doesn’t fare so well) feel like contradictions. On the one hand, the Samaritan goes on a business trip. On the way, he gets “distracted” by the many needs of a victim left on the side of the road. Those distractions interrupt business. Jesus praises the Samaritan for heeding that distraction. On the other hand, we might expect gratitude from Jesus when Martha opens her home to him and the disciples. Instead, Jesus characterizes Martha as distracted rather than devout.

So maybe we ask, “What are these texts doing together that they could not do alone?” Is it an example of the way Luke “pairs” texts with male and female examples (for example, the shepherd that goes out looking for the one sheep of the 99, and the woman who goes searching for the one coin out of 10 (15:1–10))? In these texts, it seems like they work together, in a straight line.

But if our passage for today is a kind of pair, different genres notwithstanding, it seems to shift the focus from our specific actions, which remain important, to the condition of the heart in the middle of those actions. It also places a question mark on what we call “our respective” areas: Are the act of listening to Jesus and acts of mercy (including showing hospitality) something like living in “separate lanes,” or is it the same vocation but with different moments?

Traditionally, and with Jesus, interpreters emphasize that Mary chose the “better thing”—it’s not that showing hospitality is bad, but nothing can be better than listening to God’s word! Of course, when we read the Samaritan and Martha texts together, it feels unfair to say that the actions of Martha are any less important than the actions of the Samaritan. Indeed, while Jesus says Martha is “distracted” by her “work” (New Revised Standard Version), her work is nevertheless called diakonia (literally, “service”; verse 40). This suggests that Martha’s activity (service) is on a par with that of the Samaritan (compassion) and maybe even recasts the seemingly “exceptional” mercies of the Samaritan with the more regular mercies of everyday care for living, eating, and hospitality.

As suggested above, the clue to the gospel might be in the freedom of the heart that chooses its distraction (in a world full of distractions) as a life-giving one. The Samaritan “chooses” to act on a feeling of compassion over and against the implicit agenda of doing business—a distraction from fair profit unto life-giving compassion.

Does Jesus remind us, even in the good that we do, that we have a choice, and that this choice sets apart the free act of love from the obligatory rule? We might hear verse 42, “Mary has chosen what is better,” as a gift to Martha: The freedom to choose releases us from the captivity of doing good things for the wrong reasons.

Reflection

We’re left with a problem: What would Martha have said if Jesus had given her half a chance? We don’t know. But we might find a clue in Olga Mecking’s book Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing. She’s writing about a concept, Niksen, or as she puts it elsewhere, “niks,” translated as “nothing,” which conveys a sense of just being present to yourself, whether it’s on your couch or out for a walk, without feeling as if things are competing for your attention. You attend as you feel led to look or feel or be. Doing Nik.

Mecking writes from a place of solidarity with the kinds of “distraction” that Martha might recognize: “How am I supposed to do nothing? Whenever I allow myself to sit down my house starts talking to me. ‘Do me, do me, do me,’ whispers the laundry in a totally unsexy way. Did I remind the children to do their homework, asks my conscience? … How can I just sit on the couch when I feel compelled to get up and take care of the house and everyone who lives in it (except for myself, that is)? New tasks constantly materialize as if out of thin air.”²

I like to think that Jesus joined Martha, gathered up some bowls and dirty dishes, and helped with the things in the house—not unlike the way he washed the feet of the disciples in the Gospel of John. But that feels too easy. Just as Luke gives us a textured picture of the Samaritan, we also need to hear Martha.

Notes

1. Steven Fine, “The Tribe Called Samaritans,” The Washington Post, April 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/06/samaritans-struggle-survival-israel/.
2. Olga Mecking, Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), 4–5.

PRAYER OF THE DAY

Compassionate God,
How easily you love those who look unlovable to us! How readily you welcome undesirables into your home! How slow we are to follow your example. Turn our hearts toward all who are considered outcast, shunned, and unclean so that we may love our neighbor without pity or apathy, for the sake of the one who became flesh to cleanse the world of sin and death forever, Jesus Christ our redeemer. Amen.

HYMNS

Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult ELW 696, H82 549, 550, UMH 398, NCH 171, 172
O God of mercy, God of light ELW 714
Spirit of God, descend upon my heart ELW 800, UMH 500, NCH 290

CHORAL

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, Robert Buckley-Farlee