The Parable
“But he [the lawyer], wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Then Jesus answered and said: ‘A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.” So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?’ And he said, ‘He who showed mercy on him.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise’” (Luke. 10:29-37)
An Explanation of the Parable
Priest Georgy Maximov
The parable of the good Samaritan — what is it about?
Today in the Gospel reading we heard the parable of the good Samaritan. At the beginning the circumstances in which this parable was told are related: a certain lawyer came to Christ to test Him and asked the question: “What must I do to be saved?” As the holy fathers explain, he hoped to provoke Christ into words that could be presented as contradicting the Law of Moses. But Jesus, seeing his heart, asks: “What is written in the Law?” And he answers: love God and your neighbor. The Lord says to him: you have answered well, so do this. By this He at once destroyed the man’s cunning design and showed the absurdity of his question: if you already know the answer to your question, why do you ask?
But in order, as the evangelist says, “to justify himself”, to show that he supposedly asks the question not out of cunning but out of misunderstanding, the lawyer asks: “And who is my neighbor?” And the Lord answers him with the parable of the good Samaritan, at the end of which He asks: what do you think, which of those mentioned in this parable was a neighbor to the man who suffered from the robbers? And His questioner has to admit that the Samaritan was the neighbor.
From the Lord’s first answer we see, as St. Theophan the Recluse said, that everything necessary for salvation we can learn from Holy Scripture. But then this man asks a question to which there was no unambiguous answer in the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament. And then Christ shows that his very conscience testifies how to act rightly. Each of us, by virtue of this voice of conscience, already knows how to act rightly, and, conversely, which deeds are wrong and displeasing to God. In this is a symbol of how we will be judged after the resurrection at the Dread Judgment of Christ. Many saints said that then a person’s conscience will testify against him, that is, the person himself will be his own accuser, his own prosecutor. Therefore at that judgment there will be no disputes and objections — “I didn’t do it, I didn’t know” — because each one’s conscience will testify, just as this scribe’s conscience testified. We knew that this was displeasing to God, and we knew how we should have acted rightly, according to conscience. And if we acted wrongly, our conscience will not let us justify ourselves.
The parable the Lord told, in its literal sense, says that one should not consider as a neighbor only a fellow tribesman and one who shares one’s views, as the Jews thought. Christ showed the scribe that his own conscience testifies that a neighbor can be even one whom all the Jews of that time considered a stranger. That is why He gave the example of a Samaritan, whom the Jews despised. At the same time the Lord shows in this parable that it is precisely deeds of love, mercy and goodness that can make us too neighbors to any person to whom we do good.
As for the spiritual understanding of this parable, according to the explanation of Blessed Theophylact, the man who fell among robbers is all mankind; the robbers are the devil and the demons; the priest and the Levite who passed by the injured man signify the old Law, which could explain what is good and what is bad, but did not save man. And finally, in the image of the Samaritan the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appears here.
The inn to which he brings the injured man signifies the Church; the innkeeper is the pastors of the Church; the two denarii which the Samaritan gives for the treatment of the injured man are the Old and New Testaments. As ancient coins bore the image of the king, so the Old and New Testaments alike bear the image of the Heavenly King, our Lord. That he treated the wounds of the injured man with oil and wine signifies the sacraments of the Church: oil — Chrismation, wine — the Eucharist. That it was not the innkeeper but the Samaritan who did this shows that the One who performs the sacraments is Christ Himself, and not the pastors. Finally, the Samaritan’s words, “If you spend anything more than these two denarii on healing this man, I will repay you later,” refer to the efforts and expenses which many pastors of the Church undertook for the sake of their flock. And you know from the lives of the saints that many spent on this not only their property, but also their health, and their very life — all this the Lord will repay them a hundredfold when He returns in His Second Coming.
Being edified by these words of the Gospel, let us too hold fast to the Church of Christ, learn from Holy Scripture, and strive to do works of mercy. Doing good brings light into our soul and makes us Christlike. As the Lord showed mercy to all mankind and to us, so we become at least a little like the Lord when we show mercy to one who is in need or has fallen into trouble. And, walking this way, we will find ourselves where the Lord wants to see us all — in the Kingdom of Heaven.
(translated from the Russian; source, in Russian)