Seventeenth Day of Lent: The Samaritan

As Will finishes speaking with Abraham, the herald, Moses comes running up as a scout, carrying letters from his Lord.  These letters are written on stone (like the Ten Commandments) and say simply “Love God and love your neighbor,” the summary of the law (Matthew 22:40).  Moses tells Will and Abraham how he has saved many men and women with those words, and Will asks Moses about the Trinity as he had asked Abraham.

            “And as we went on our way talking of this matter,

            We saw then a Samaritan come along, sitting on a mule,

            Riding with great haste the same way we were going,

            Coming from a country that men called Jericho;

            To joust in Jerusalem was he riding so fast.”

As Will, Abraham, Moses, and the Samaritan move along the road they come upon a man who had been bound by thieves, lying naked and half-dead by the side of the road.  Abraham passes by the man on the other side of the road, and Moses does likewise, even though he had boasted how his words had saved many.  The Samaritan, however, stops and heals the man with wine and oil, sets him upon his horse, and takes him to an inn, The Baptismal Font, to recuperate.

As the Samaritan begins to go on his way, Will follows him and asks him why Abraham and Moses did not help the man.

            “They are excused,” said the Samaritan; “their help would not avail,

            Nor is there any medicine of earth could bring that man to health,

            Neither Faith nor fair Hope, so festered are his wounds.

            Without the blood of a son he will not be saved,

            And that son, in truth, must be born of a maid;

            With blood of that son he must be baptized and anointed.

            And though he stand and walk, never will he grow truly strong

            Till he have eaten that son and drunk his blood.”

Will, apparently satisfied with this answer, is still curious about the Trinity, and asks the Samaritan what he can teach him about it.  The Samaritan tells him, if he is ever confused about the Trinity, to just look at his hand:  the Father is like the fist, the Son like the fingers coming out of the fist to grasp something, and the Spirit like the palm, where all the strength of the hand lies.  They all act in unison and are all entirely the hand, but they are also distinct.  The Trinity is also like a candle, wax, wick, and fire, giving light to us all.

The Samaritan goes on to say that we too are like candles in the image of this Candle of the Trinity and that we should likewise burn with the full blaze of the Holy Spirit.  But our mistreatment of our neighbors and fellow Christians quenches the fire, so that the Spirit is only a smoldering wick in us, and not a full flame.  When we behave like the Rich Man who did not share his wealth with Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), or like the thieves who set upon the man on the road, we quench the Holy Spirit because give God no material of love and goodness to burn in.  Will asks the Samaritan how we can amend and be forgiven if we have quenched the Spirit in this way.  The Samaritan replies that God is always merciful to those who repent, but that they must also make restitution toward those they have wronged.  With that he declares he must be on his way.  As the Samaritan hurries off, Will awakes.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most famous and familiar of all of Jesus’ parables, but the symbolic interpretation of it which Langland uses here is probably unfamiliar to you.  Here, not only is the story of the Good Samaritan a perfect example of loving our neighbor, it is also a story about Jesus coming to save humanity.  The Faith and Hope of the Old Testament (represented by Abraham and Moses), for all their virtues, cannot help humanity, beset by robbers (sin and the devil) and lying helpless and half-dead by the side of the road:  only the Samaritan, Christ, is capable of healing us and taking us to the place of recuperation, which is baptism and the church.  This may seem to us a strange interpretation of the parable, but it is in fact a very ancient way of reading it.

It’s always good to see something familiar from a different angle.  How do you hear the story of the Good Samaritan differently when you are the man helpless and half-dead at the side of the road, and not one of the passers-by?  The parable is certainly challenging and convicting if we think of what we would do as one of the passers-by.  But we also get to be the hero of the story if we “get it right.”  We are the ones in charge of whether we do right or not.

But when we see that we are the ones by the side of the road, Jesus is always the hero of the story, and we see that we are only able to live because he has helped us and healed us.  We see that loving our neighbor is not just a decision we make in any given situation, but something we can only do because God first loved us and has given us the power to love as he loves, the power to let the Holy Spirit burn in our lives as in the life of God.

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, 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 while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them.  Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’”  (Luke 10:30-35)