We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

samaritan

Commentary, July 10, 2022

 Theme – God’s call challenges us to obedience, compassion and action for justice

“The Good Samaritan” – Van Gogh (1890)

The lectionary readings are here  or individually: 

First Reading – Deuteronomy 30:9-14

Psalm – Psalm 25:1-9

Epistle – Colossians 1:1-14

Gospel – Luke 10:25-37 


Today’s readings focus on God’s call challenging us to obedience, compassion and action for justice. In Deuteronomy (Track 2), Moses assures the people that God’s call to obedience is not too difficult nor is it hidden. Paul writes that Christ, the image of the invisible God, is our Creator, Sustainer and Reconciler. Jesus answers a lawyer’s question by telling the story of the Good Samaritan.

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What we say about ourselves is not nearly as important as how we live out what we say—how we live out our lives with Christ. We are called by God throughout scripture and tradition to care for the poor, the outcast, the oppressed, and the marginalized—but throughout our history and scripture, we have found ways to make excuses. We have put ourselves before others and have justified our way of life, while others around us and in the world continue to suffer. We cannot remain ignorant of the struggles of others. Eventually, justice catches up to us

Moses warned the people in the wilderness, and they did not listen. Jesus questions the lawyer who wants the right answer to be given, who wants to speak aloud the truth, and helps him to realize that it is about a love that shows mercy, a way of living towards others. How are we living out our faith? Are we just saying what we believe in? Is it more important to have the right statements of faith, or is it more important to do what Jesus has called us to do and live out our faith?


How often have we passed by persons in need or deferred social involvement to keep our own schedule ? We are not bad persons either; we simply place our broad spectrum vocational callings ahead of the concreteness of God’s call in the present moment.


Our challenge is to grow in stature, so that we can creatively and lovingly balance our personal and institutional responsibilities, including our self-care and care for families and congregations, with the unsettling challenges to go beyond our immediate responsibilities so that we may become God’s partners in healing the world. Jewish mystics remind us that to save one soul is to save the world. From a God’s eye view, this means to care for our loved ones and ourselves as well as those who are loved by God and beyond the walls of our communities. This will lead to agitation but our agitation will find completeness and comfort in feelings of wholeness which emerge when we join our well-being with the well-being of our most vulnerable local and global companions.


II. Summary


First Reading – Deuteronomy 30:9-14


The book of Deuteronomy is presented as Moses’ farewell address to the Israelite people gathered at the border of the promised land. The book is a reinterpretation of Mosaic instruction (the Jewish Torah or Law) to deal with the situations of later history. It, or the core of it, was probably “the book of the law” found in 621 BC, which sparked Josiah’s reforms (2 Kings 22–23). It emphasizes the continued relevance of Moses’ teaching to each generation. In its real purpose, Deuteronomy is about starting over, hoping to get it right and keep it going this time, where “it” is national identity expressed through loyalty to God’s law.


Today’s reading comes from Moses’ third address (chaps. 29–30). In this scene, as in others in the book, we see the author leading us away from a classic mythological view of God’s wisdom and direction to a new place wherein God’s teaching is evident and approachable. The people are promised restoration and renewal of the covenant. Following the verses that promise a continuing prosperity, we are led to the feet of the Law, the commandments of God. It is here that Israel will encounter the living one, not in the gifts of God’s blessing


They will enjoy the blessings of obedience (v. 9) if they seek, follow, serve and obey the lord with the total intensity of their whole being (v. 10). God has drawn near and revealed the guidelines that are necessary for living a life pleasing to God. God has already placed these deep within us. Our task is to discover and live them.


What God is asking of them is not too difficult, nor is it far-fetched; but rather, it should become second-nature, because the word is very near them (vs. 14). God delights in us when we are faithful, because we are concerned about the same things God is concerned about. Moses’ hope is that the people remember that the same God who brought them out of Egypt, and gave them manna in the wilderness, and gave them the commandments so that they would know how to follow God’s ways will not forget that God is always with them. Moses’ hope is for the people to remain faithful as God has remained faithful.  


Psalm – Psalm 25:1-9


Psalm 25:1-10 is a prayer for God’s guidance in this life. This psalm seems to describe the intimacy of God’s wisdom and Law as the Deuteronomist has done in the Old Testament reading this week.


The psalmist seeks God’s protection and help, but also prays for wisdom and insight in how to follow God, seeking forgiveness for where one has made mistakes in the past. The psalmist sings praises for the way God teaches us and gives us direction, and if we are faithful, we will understand God’s faithfulness.


This is an acrostic psalm, each verse beginning with a successive letter of the alphabet – one of nine in the collections of the Psalms.. It is in the form of a personal lament and contains the usual cry for help (vv. 1-3), plea for guidance (vv. 4-5), expression of trust (vv. 6-15) and presentation of the psalmist’s plight (vv. 17-19) in a prayer of vindication (vv. 16-21). The psalm may have been written for general use by any worshiper.


In verses 4-5, the psalmist asks God to teach him truth. He recognizes that his adversaries, both external (vv. 2) and internal (vv. 7), are strong enough to triumph over him. His fear of the lord compels him to acknowledge that God alone can make him into a person of true righteousness (v. 9).


There are images of a journey in these verses, with the central image of the psalmist attempting to walk in the ways of the Lord (see “He guides” (verse 8) and “All the paths” (verse 9). God is pictured here not only as one who shares wisdom, but also as one who forgives when we have forgotten the wisdom.



Today’s reading is the first of a sequence of four Sundays from the letter to the Colossians. The letter to the Colossians addressed tendencies among the Colossian Christians to merge differing beliefs. They had apparently adopted additional teaching, ritual observances and ascetic practices from various sources–Judaism, the pagan mystery cults and speculative theosophy–in order to supplement Christianity and thereby ensure salvation. The letter asserts the entire sufficiency of Christ and of redemption through him.


Today’s reading follows the outline of the beginning of most of Paul’s letters: salutation (1:1-2), thanksgiving (1:3-8) and prayer of intercession (1:9-14). The Colossians are reminded of the gospel they learned from Epaphras (4:12f; Philemon 23). Paul prays that they may be open to God’s will and be strengthened by God to lead moral lives; the connection between knowledge of the gods and ethical behavior was not always made in the pagan religions.


The use of such words as knowledge and wisdom may be a deliberate appropriation of terms used by the mystery religions in order to claim them for Christ. In the Graeco-Roman world at this time there was a general sense of being imprisoned in the world and subjected to evil spirits; thus, many different groups promised deliverance through esoteric knowledge and practices.


What we hear is a message of encouragement, that we no longer live in the power of darkness but in the reign of Christ. The author begins with blessing the Colossians with God’s strength and endurance from God, that they may bear fruit and be pleasing to God and to others. Paul proclaims that it is God who “has delivered us from the dominion of darkness” and it is his Son “in whom we have redemption” through baptism. There is no need to propitiate other powers.


Paul wants them to continue in their knowledge – he mark’s it out: God’s will, spiritual wisdom, understanding. And he prays that there me fruits that come from the faith that they so boldly exhibit. There is a hint of trouble to come, Paul is no Pollyanna, “and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience.” Suddenly at verse 13, the focus shift from the faithful to the faithful Jesus, “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” This is the foundation of the discussion that Paul will have with these people, and which we shall listen in on during the coming Sundays.


Gospel –  Luke 10:25-37 


Last Sunday the Seventy (or Seventy-Two) were sent out, and when they returned the reported about the things that they had seen. Now we shall meet a character who cannot see. But it is not just the young lawyer who cannot see, the characters in the parable Jesus tells also cannot see.


Today’s reading illustrates the challenge of Christian discipleship in relationship to others. Luke 10:25-37 is the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan. The greatest commandment is listed in all four Gospels in some variation. In Luke’s version, it is not Jesus who answer the questioner with the Greatest commandment, but it is Jesus answering a question with a question—when the lawyer asks “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”


The scholar’s question to Jesus about how to summarize the Jewish Law was one frequently posed to rabbis, who commonly replied with the second part of the answer, taken from Leviticus 19:18b (“you shall love your neighbor as yourself”). The first part is taken from the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”) which was part of the daily morning prayer of the Jews.


Jesus responds with, “What is written in the law?What do you read there?” Jesus is telling the lawyer to look up what is in the law himself. The lawyer picks up on this dance of questions and responds to Jesus – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”


He waits for Jesus’ response, “You have given the right answer; do this and you will live,” the lawyer asks another question, “And who is my neighbor?” His concern about the Law is really about his concern about survival. Even though he knows the answer about God, neighbor, and self, he doesn’t know how to enact it.


Then Jesus tells the parable. By attaching the story of the Good Samaritan, Luke illustrates in a memorable way what the love of a neighbor requires. This also reinforces the Christian application of the Jewish covenant commandments to all persons. In looking for God, we must also see the neighbor, and the neighbor is the last person that we might expect. Usually “the neighbor is the one we would rather avoid.


Jesus asks the question at the end “Which of these three was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” That is the final question asked, and the lawyer finally has to answer, “The one who showed him mercy.” Love is about showing mercy, and love is about doing justice. This is the way of God, the most important commandment: to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and the way of love is justice and mercy.


Thus a neighbor was a fellow Jew or a resident alien who was under their protection (Leviticus 19:34). The parable turns the question around, from neighbor as object of love to neighbor as one who shows love without defining or delimiting the recipient. Like God (Luke 1:78), like Jesus (Luke 7:13), like the prodigal’s father (Luke 15:20), the despised Samaritan has compassion upon the one in need and acts decisively to rescue the sufferer from the difficult situation.


Today the whole world has become our neighborhood. Scenes of the overwhelming needs of strangers strain our eyes and assault our senses. Crime in our city streets and on the highways has become so common and violent that some of us do not dare be good Samaritans nor teach our children to be friendly to strangers.


Moreover, vast social machinery now exists for taking care of the needy. Many of us give, either voluntarily or under some compulsion to support those agencies and organizations that are the caretakers of social needs. Our social conscience is able to stay alive in this way without too much personal involvement.


So what sense can we in our day make of the one-to-one setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan? The question now seems to be the same one the lawyer asked of Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?” Or, whom are we obliged to help?


Jesus offered no formula to help us make categorical decisions. Implicit in the parable was the only guideline we have—Christ’s loving concern for the individual and willingness to take action to change the situation.


Love is the only energizer and director of our activities that we can trust to guide us. We can know who our neighbor is only when we know who God is. When God’s word is in our hearts and God’s Spirit in our lives, we are able to respond to the needs around us.


Jesus ended the lawyer’s speculative approach to the meaning of life. The parable reversed the lawyer’s question from “Who is worthy of my attention?” to “To whose need must I respond with the love that God shows to me?”


It is by God’s light that we see God’s image in the faces of our brothers and sisters. It is by Christ’s Spirit within us that we extend aid and comfort to them. Real redeeming work, whether for the body or the soul, requires costly, self-sacrificing effort. We pray for grace to bear Christ’s love to all left bludgeoned and abandoned beside the road.

Compassion without Boundaries -Background of the “Good Samaritan” in Luke from author Alexander Shaia

Some background of the Gospel of Luke provides insight of why this story appears in this gospel and no others. Luke wrote in the 80’s AD after both Matthew and Mark (and before John). Jesus resurrection was 50 years earlier. He wrote it in Antioch in Turkey at a time when Christianity was expanding to the Gentiles all throughout the Mediterranean. How was Christianity to unite these peoples ?

The issues are taken up in The Hidden Power of the Gospels: Four Questions, Four Paths, One Journey by Alexander Shaia.

“Nero had executed the Jewish Christus followers of Rome twenty years earlier, although persecution had not extended to Christus believers throughout the rest of the empire at that time. Then in 70 CE, Vespasian leveled the Great Temple of Jerusalem and massacred all its priests, throwing Judaism into total disarray. In the steps that religion took to survive, a process began that still resonates in the lives of Christians and Jews.

“The slaughter resulted in a complete lack of religious authority. The Pharisees, educated teachers of Jewish religious law but not officially con­nected to the Temple, stepped into the vacuum. By the mid-80s CE, the time of Luke’s gospel, their role had significantly increased. In many Jewish communities, their voices rose to roles of clear leadership. In others, they represented merely one of many voices struggling to advise how best to move forward in the face of great loss. Eventually, the Pharisees became the primary voice of the Jewish community, reunifying the people in the ab­sence of the Temple and its priests—but not before Luke began to write.”

And as part of their ascension “The Pharisees advocated for the removal from Judaism of all variant sects who believed that the Messiah had already come. Chief among these were the “Followers of the Way”’ (the Christus sect), who maintained that the Messiah had arrived for the salvation of all people, not just Jew

“They carried pain, and some of them likely had a touch of ar­rogance attached to their lingering resentments. They had also migrated all over the Mediterranean basin, which presented them with persecution from another quarter. The Roman government was more than nervous about the Christus followers—it was terror-stricken. “The fear of this message led to its oppression of the Christus communities—and the persecution increased steadily.

“The fear of this message led to its oppression of the Christus communities—and the persecution increased steadily.

“Although some scholars believe that the Gospel of Luke was written to a high Roman official in defense of Christianity, others think it was a teach­ing written in Antioch designed to be distributed among these burgeoning communities across the Mediterranean world.

“In Hebrew teachings, “heart” implies a unitive aspect of one’s hu­manity that is greater than mere emotion—encompassing body, feelings, will, intuition, and thought—everything but soul.

“How were the nascent “Followers of the Way” to move forward in the face of being cursed by the Pharisees, abandoned by most of their Jewish friends, and oppressed by the Roman Empire? How could they deal with the hurt and resentments that threatened to poison their lives and divide their families? Should they verbally dispute and defend themselves against each hurt? Should they take up arms and fight? Should they hold to tra­ditional practices?

“Luke draws a stark spiritual line, using his gospel to focus on spiritual maturation. He instructs the Followers of the Way to stringently challenge themselves, speak their truth boldly, yet maintain- inner equanimity and avoid self-righteousness. Faced with opposition on all sides, the course Jesus taught in Luke’s gospel was for the Christus believers to “be” at peace, rather than taking up arms or trying to effect change through anger. This gospel is filled with instruc­tions about growing into the capacity for mature relationships and compas­sion and generosity without boundaries.”

“The Gospel thus became a “how to” manual designed to be distributed among these burgeoning communities across the Mediterranean world.”

Van Gogh’s Depiction of the “Good Samaritan

From Author of this article

Vincent Van Gogh’s dynamic and intimate portrait of the Good Samaritan is based on the French painter Eugene Delacroix’s similar painting. Van Gogh painted his own version of Delacroix’s The Good Samaritan while recuperating at the asylum of Saint-Rémy after suffering from two mental breakdowns in the winter of 1888-89.

At the time, Van Gogh was feeling spent and fragile and this sense of helplessness colors both figures at the heart of the painting. The broken and attacked man can barely get up on the horse. His muscles appear limp, depleted of any strength that could help him sit upright. All the man appears capable of is clinging to his rescuer. Likewise, the Samaritan seems to be barely able to summon up the strength to lift the man on the horse. By imbuing the painting with his own brokenness, Van Gogh creates a moving depiction of Christ’s solidarity with us in our human weakness. Christ humbles himself, taking on the form of a slave (Phil 2:7). And we, like this robbed man, can do nothing without Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13).

In some of the earliest  interpretations of the parable by early Church theologians, most famously by Augustine, the Good Samaritan is an image of Christ. The two coins with which the Samaritan pays the innkeeper are the two commandments: to love the Lord Our  and to love our neighbor as ourselves. During this Lenten season, we strive to love God more through purifying our lives of distracting loves of lesser things, and we strive to love our neighbor more through positive actions of charity and almsgiving.

As we meditate on this image of the Samaritan lifting up the weak robbed man, let us ponder what weaknesses we need Christ to heal in us this Lent. How is Christ seeking to reach us, even in our weakness? And how, through acts of almsgiving, can we be Good Samaritans for our neighbors in need this Lent?

On May 8, 1889, exhausted, ill, and out of control, Vincent Van Gogh committed himself to St. Paul’s psychiatric asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a small hamlet in the south of France. A former monastery, the sanitarium was located in an area of cornfields, vineyards and olive trees. There Van Gogh was allowed two small adjoining cells with barred windows. One room he used as his bedroom, and the other was his tiny studio. While there, Van Gogh not only painted the surrounding area and the interior of the asylum, he also copied paintings and drawings by other artists, making those paintings his own through modifications he made to the painting’s composition, the colors and, of course, the brush strokes.

One of the artists whose works Van Gogh copied and modified was the Dutch Gold Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn. The Good Samaritan by Rembrandt drew Van Gogh’s attention: in which a Samaritan man hoists a wounded man with a bandaged head onto a horse to be taken to an inn for recovery.

When Van Gogh was admitted to the sanitarium in St Remy de Provence, he had become so difficult, so sick that the townspeople of Arles, where he had been living and painting had given him the name “the red-headed madman.” After a psychotic break during the visit of fellow artist Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh was all but put out of the town. With the help of a couple of people, he eventually made his way to the sanitarium in St Remy de Provence where he copied and modified Delacroix’s painting of The Good Samaritan.

If viewers were to see the two paintings – Rembrandt’s and Van Gogh’s side by side – the first thing that would strike you is the light in Van Gogh’s painting and the darkness in Rembrandt’s. Though not sharing the bright colors of his paintings in Arles, Van Gogh’s painting of The Good Samaritan, is well lit which means we can make out things more clearly in the painting.

The Good Samaritan – ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’

This is one of the most practical Bible lessons.

“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? This is a basic, universal question that is asked by almost all human beings, even today. In Mark and Matthew, the question is more of a Jewish question. That is, “What is the greatest/first commandment of the law?” Mark and Matthew were asking a fundamental Jewish question; Luke was asking a fundamental universal question.

Luke was written to a larger world which he knew as a follower of Paul. This was the first time the idea of Dt 6:5 (“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”) being combined with Leviticus 19:18 (“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.”)

Jesus is challenged by a lawyer. The lawyer’s presence and public questioning of Jesus shows the degree of importance his detractors are placing on finding a flaw they can use. The lawyer is trying to see if there was a distinction between friends and enemies. Luke in the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”) had eliminated the distinction and the lawyer was trying to introduce it again. As Jesus’ influence with the crowds continues to grow, the alarm of the religious establishment grows as well.

His first question is “what must I do to inherit eternal life.” Jesus answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” The lawyer follows up with a second question, also a very good one. If doing this, i.e., loving God and loving neighbor as oneself, is a matter of eternal life, then defining “neighbor” is important in this context. The lawyer, however, in reality, is self-centered, concerned only for himself.

Jesus shifts the question from the one the lawyer asks — who is my neighbor?–to ask what a righteous neighbor does. The neighbor is the one we least expect to be a neighbor. The neighbor is the “other,” the one most despised or feared or not like us. It is much broader than the person who lives next to you. A first century audience, Jesus’ or Luke’s, would have known the Samaritan represented a despised “other.”

Read more: The Good Samaritan – ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’

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Of the four characters in this story (besides the robbers and the victim) – the lawyer, levite, priest and Samaritan – the first three were known in Jewish society. The Samaritan is the outsider.

The idea of being a “Good Samaritan” would have been an oxymoron to a first century Jew. During an ancient Israeli war, most of the Jews living up north in Samaria were killed or taken into exile. How can the Samaritans be anything but “bad”? Jews would do anything to avoid these people. However, a few Jews, who were so unimportant that nobody wanted them, were left in Samaria. Since that time, these Jews had intermarried with other races. They were considered half-breeds by the “true” Jews. They had perverted the race. They had also perverted the religion.

Note also that the Samaritan acts not to receive anything for himself (like self-justification). He responds to the needs of the man in the ditch and his actions cost him — time and money. The others can’t go beyond their limited role in society. The levite can’t touch the injured because of laws against uncleanness. The priests (Pharisees) are more concerned with rules and structures. We must look beyond the mores of society.

The verbs used with the Samaritan are worth emulating: to have compassion others; to come (near) to others; to care for others; to do mercy to others. It is not enough just to know what the Law says, one must also do it. To put it another way, it is not enough just to talk about “what one believes,” but “what difference does it make in my life that I believe.”

The man in the ditch may represent us. Brian Stoffregen quotes Bernard Scott in Jesus, Symbol-Maker for the Kingdom. “Grace comes to those who cannot resist, who have no other alternative than to accept it. To enter the parable’s World, to get into the ditch, is to be so low that grace is the only alternative. The point may be so simple as this: only he who needs grace can receive grace.. all who are truly victims, truly disinherited, have no choice but to give themselves up to mercy.” And we are victims in our own way.

He goes on to say “the parable of the Good Samaritan may be reduced to two propositions: In the Kingdom of God mercy comes only to those who have no right to expect it and who cannot resist it when it comes. Mercy always comes from the quarter from which one does not and cannot expect.”

Stoffregen says “I have usually taken the second interpretive approach to this text. We are the ones in the ditch and the Samaritan represent God — God who is both enemy and helper. Our sin makes God our enemy. Yet, in the parable, the “enemy” gives new life to the man in the ditch. The “enemy” expends his resources (apparently unlimited) for the care of the half-dead man.

“The problems with the lawyer is that he couldn’t see God as his enemy. He hadn’t recognized the depth of his own sinfulness. (He wants to justify himself and probably had a bit of pride that comes along with that.) He was too strong and healthy. He assumes that he has the ability to do something to inherit eternal life. He assumes that he can do something to justify himself. He is not helpless in the ditch. He thinks he doesn’t need God’s grace.

“God also gets into the ditch of the dead. On the cross, God died. There is the resurrection “donkey” who transports us to the heavenly “inn” where there is complete recovery from all pain and suffering.”

“I also noted in this sermon that at times we might identify with the innkeeper. In the parable, the Samaritan used the innkeeper to continue the healing process the he had started. The Samaritan promised to provide everything that the innkeeper would need to care for this man. Sometimes God helps us out of the ditch directly. Sometimes God uses other people.”

In the end our neighbor is everyone.

Jesus said to him, “You have answered rightly. Do this and you will live. We don’t repeat the words – we need live them as they had at the time. It is part of living a transformed life in the Kingdom away from structure of society that inhibit us and put blinders on us.”