The Good Samaritan: The Parable That Turns Our Idea of "Neighbor" Upside Down

Introduction

The parable of the Good Samaritan is so well known that the phrase has become part of everyday language. Yet we've forgotten how shocking it was to its first hearers. To help you feel it, the preacher offers a modern version: imagine a man attacked at night in an industrial zone and left for dead; a pastor walks by and keeps going, then an evangelical church deacon does the same. And it's a Muslim man who stops, tends to him, drives him to the clinic, and pays the bill. Which of the three was his neighbor? This is the point at which Jesus, by telling the story of a Samaritan, unsettles the religious certainties of his audience. This Momentum Church sermon, part of a series on the parables of Jesus, focuses on two decisive reversals in the text of Luke 10.

Sermon Outline

1. A specialist's question and Jesus' unexpected answer

• An expert in the law stands up to test Jesus: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25). The question already assumes eternal life is a reward for something we've done, a sign that this specialist isn't quite on the right track.
• Jesus points him back to the law: "What is written? How do you read it?" He didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). The lawyer answers correctly by citing the two great commandments, but it's Jesus who, for the first time in Judaism, brought together "you shall love the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 6:5) and "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).
• Feeling a bit foolish for being pointed back to something so obvious, the expert tries to justify himself: "And who is my neighbor?" Rabbis debated this very point. Yet Leviticus 19 itself, just a few verses later, extends the command to the foreigner: "You shall love him as yourself" (Leviticus 19:34). Jesus answers with a parable.

2. First reversal: your neighbor is the one far off

• Jesus chooses as his hero not a Jew, but a Samaritan, the despised one, the hated one, the one the Jews "have no dealings with" (John 4:9). The priest passes by. The Levite passes by. It's the Samaritan who is moved with compassion, who draws near, who binds up the wounds with oil and wine, who lifts the injured man onto his own animal, who pays for the inn, and who promises to come back and cover whatever else is owed.
• Jesus overturns the idea that "neighbor" means only fellow countryman. There's a solidarity among all human beings: we're children of one father and one mother (Eve is "the mother of all living," Genesis 3:20). By virtue of the first creation, we are brothers and sisters.
• Ephesians 4:25 makes this solidarity explicit: "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." This is our relationship to our neighbor (meaning to every man, every woman), not only to fellow believers in Christ. All racism, then, is ruled out by biblical revelation itself.
• Be careful, though: this isn't about loving an abstract humanity. Love of neighbor means loving the person God places in your path. "By chance," the text says, a priest was going down that road. Nothing is by chance for God: along our paths, he arranges encounters he wants us to step into.
• This love is first and foremost direct, drawing near, tending to someone, taking responsibility for them. But it can also take indirect forms: public safety, policies against unemployment, education, the thinking of those who shape a society. All these forms belong to love of neighbor, but they never replace the direct relationship with the person the Lord places in front of you.

3. Second reversal: "which one proved to be the neighbor?"

• After telling the story, Jesus doesn't ask the question you'd logically expect: "Which one recognized his neighbor in the man who fell among robbers?" Instead he turns the wording around: "Which of these three proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" (Luke 10:36).
• The neighbor is no longer the object of the verb to love, he becomes its subject. Grammatically, that's not a small thing. It's a command: don't try to figure out who your neighbor is, draw near, become someone's neighbor, and you will have your neighbor. Concrete obedience comes before theoretical definition.
• Even more deeply: Jesus defines the neighbor as the one who comes to the rescue. It is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18), loneliness leaves a person half dead. The neighbor is given to us by God as the one who delivers us from that inhuman isolation.
• Sin has disfigured this solidarity: all too often man has become a wolf to man, or sets himself up as god over another. But through common grace, enough original goodness remains that our neighbor can still, very concretely, be our rescue.

4. The true Good Samaritan is Jesus himself

• Only one person has ever drawn near perfectly. Only one has paid with his own life (far more than two denarii), all the way to the most brutal and shameful death, the death of crucifixion.
• That Samaritan is the very one telling the story. It's Jesus. In John 8:48, his opponents hurl an insult at him: "You are a Samaritan and have a demon." Jesus wasn't a Samaritan in the contemptuous sense they meant it. But he is, in truth, the true Good Samaritan.
• This parable, then, is no longer just an imagined little story: it's a historical fact that wants to write itself into each of our personal histories. Let the Good Samaritan draw near to you, bind up your wounds, and direct your life. It's him, it's Jesus.

Key Takeaways

• The expert's question ("who is my neighbor?"), is a trap Jesus refuses to fall into. He sends you to go and do, not to debate.
• Your neighbor is also the person you're most culturally or religiously distant from. Jesus deliberately chooses the hated Samaritan.
• We are all members of one another (Ephesians 4:25), by virtue of the first creation itself. Racism is theologically ruled out.
• A vague love for "humanity" costs nothing. What God asks for is concrete love for the person he places in your path today.
• Jesus' second reversal: draw near, become the neighbor, and you will have your neighbor. Neighbor is conjugated as an active subject, not just a passive object.
• The true Good Samaritan is Jesus himself. He drew near, he paid the price, he takes care of you, let him step into your story.

Personal Application

1. Is there a "Samaritan" in your life, someone you avoid because of their culture, religion, or history? What would Jesus do in your place?
2. This week, who is the wounded person on your path, an isolated neighbor, a struggling coworker, a family member in pain? How will you draw near concretely, not just in your thoughts?
3. Are you tempted by an abstract love for "humanity" that costs you nothing, at the expense of directly loving the real people around you?
4. Do you see your neighbor as someone God gives you to deliver you from loneliness, or only as a potential threat?
5. Are you letting Jesus, the true Good Samaritan, bind up your own wounds today? Or are you pretending you don't need anyone?

Scriptures Cited

• Luke 10:25-37 · the parable of the Good Samaritan
• Deuteronomy 6:5 · you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart
• Leviticus 19:18 · you shall love your neighbor as yourself
• Leviticus 19:34 · you shall love the foreigner as yourself
• Ephesians 4:25 · we are members one of another
• John 4:9 · the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans
• John 8:48 · "You are a Samaritan," his opponents accuse him
• Genesis 2:18 · it is not good for man to be alone
• Matthew 5:17 · Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it

Further reading

• Why Do Small Groups Disappear?
• How to Prepare a Small Group Bible Study
• Home Group Themes: 30 Ideas

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the neighbor I'm called to love, according to the parable of the Good Samaritan?

Jesus flips the question. Your neighbor isn't just your countryman or the person culturally close to you, it's whoever God places in your path, including the person you're most socially distant from. In the parable, it's the Samaritan, hated by the Jews, who fulfills the commandment, not the priest, not the Levite. The same principle holds today: your neighbor may be the person you most instinctively avoid because of their religious or cultural strangeness.

Why does Jesus turn the question around at the end of the parable?

Instead of asking, "Which one recognized his neighbor?", Jesus asks, "Which one proved to be a neighbor to the wounded man?" The neighbor becomes the subject of the verb to love, not merely its object. The hidden meaning: draw near, become a neighbor to the other person, and you will have your neighbor. It's a call to concrete obedience, don't try to define who your neighbor is, become one. And even more deeply: your neighbor is the one who comes to your rescue, the one God gives you to deliver you from a loneliness that would otherwise leave you half dead.

How is Jesus himself the true Good Samaritan?

Only one has ever drawn near to us perfectly: Jesus. He paid far more than two denarii, he paid with his own life, all the way to the death of the cross, to bind up our wounds. His opponents even insulted him by calling him a Samaritan (John 8:48). He wasn't one in the contemptuous sense they meant, but he is truly the Good Samaritan, the one through whom this parable stops being just an imagined little story and becomes a historical fact that wants to write itself into your own personal history. Let him draw near to you.