A lawyer in Luke’s gospel uses this question to “justify” himself, and to trap Jesus in a debate over the laws about the extent of one’s obligations. Who is my neighbor? The person next door, on the same street, in the same synagogue, the same town?
Jesus does not engage in the debate. Instead, he offers what has become one of the most popular of his parables: the parable of the Good Samaritan. I prefer to think of it as the parable of the Samaritan and the Robbery Victim.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, `Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Luke10:30b-35 (emphasis mine)
In his Interpretation commentary, Luke, Fred Craddock says that “parable,” from the Greek, means “tossed alongside;” so, part of interpreting a parable is recognizing what things have been “tossed alongside” each other in an effort to help us understand them in a new way.
Jews and Samaritans were, for many strong and sound reasons, completely at odds with each other. So, to his listeners, the idea of the Samaritan as the “hero” of a story told by Jesus would have stretched the imagination, probably to the point of absurdity. To most of Jesus’ initial audience Samaritans were, in effect, nearby pretenders—the false ones at the door, made worse by their proximity. “Neighbors“ under the worst pretense.
Unlike the others who “passed by on the other side,” however, the Samaritan “had compassion” when he saw the robbery victim.
The Greek word translated as compassion here means more literally “to feel something in one’s entrails. Many translations render it “pity,” or “mercy” but, in English, to have pity on someone is to be moved while in a position of power, wealth, or health, while preserving the distance that position provides. To have “mercy” on someone is to have power over them and to decline to exercise it. “Compassion,” meanwhile comes from the Latin, meaning “to suffer with” in such way as to overcome the distance of advantage, position, or power.
We know our neighbors and are able to love them, as they are, in a crucial sense, ourselves. So, loving our neighbors means, in part, having compassion, suffering with them. Our neighbors are those with whom we suffer. When we recognize the humanity of others, made obvious in their suffering, we can discover that humanity within ourselves. People become our neighbors when we share suffering. We become neighbors when we disclose to each other our shared humanity. Through shared suffering—through compassion—we belong to each other. The parable of the Samaritan and the Robbery Victim reminds us that shared suffering—compassion—offers even estranged enemies a way to love.