The Good Samaritan and the Christian Physician, Part 1: Mercy Fulfills the Law

There are many passages in the Bible that are of importance to physicians; and topping the list are all those in which Jesus worked healing miracles, healing lepers, making the lame to walk and the blind to see. In the tradition of the Church, Christ himself has been called the Divine Physician, and he is certainly a preeminent role model for all physicians. However, one Scripture passage of particular importance to physicians is not a story about Jesus, but a parable told by Jesus: the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25–37). This parable is certainly of importance to all Christians, for it teaches us who our neighbor is and shows us much about love of neighbor. It is a wonderfully simple but profound exemplar of Christian charity which Pope Benedict XVI said “is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specific situations.”¹ While Jesus himself does not heal in this pericope as the Good Samaritan does, the Fathers of the Church and the Church’s great Tradition (for example, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Pope Benedict XV, Pope Pius XI) identify Jesus with the Good Samaritan.² In addition both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have pointed out the significance of the parable of the Good Samaritan for all physicians.³ They have even gone so far as to identify the human physician with Christ the Physician who is the Good Samaritan.⁴

The Story

The parable in Luke 10 is set in the context of commissioning, preaching, healing, and eternal life. Before he tells the parable, Jesus commissions the disciples to go out two by two with no possessions to preach the good news and heal the sick. The disciples return rejoicing in their power over demons. Then Jesus admonishes them not to rejoice in their authority, but rather in their being recognized in heaven and in the blessing of seeing and hearing the Son of God (Lk 10:20, 23–24). This context is carried over into the parable. The lawyer asks about eternal life. Jesus preaches about healing and mercy, then commissions the lawyer to “Go and do likewise” (Lk 10:37).

Two major themes of the pericope are the law and mercy.

The Law

A lawyer asks Jesus how to gain eternal life, and Jesus points the lawyer to the law, particularly the greatest commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. The lawyer, who presumably knows the law, is seeking to “justify himself” (Lk 10:29). (Think about all the times we make excuses for our behavior, trying to justify our actions). Jesus came to fulfill the law not to break it, avoid it, or abolish it, or make excuses. He uses the parable to show the difference between not breaking the law (i.e., doing the minimum) and fulfilling the law. “Love of neighbor is not fulfilled by a vague, general love for people in general; it is activated in the concrete circumstances surrounding individual persons.”⁵ Jesus tries to get the lawyer to see that to which the priest and the Levite turn a blind eye.

Much is made in the New Testament of eyes and sight, of seeing and not believing, or not seeing and yet believing. Jesus himself made reference to sight just prior to this parable: “Then turning to the disciples he said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it’” (Lk 10:23–24). The priest and the Levite see the half-dead man and cross the road. They see, yet refuse to allow themselves to be touched by (or to touch) what they see, as Ambrose inferred about the Novatians: “you say: ‘Touch me not’ … going on like that priest, like that Levite passing by him whom you ought to have taken and tended.”⁶ They make themselves spiritually blind to what they see (see Jn 9:35–41). Because they are able to see and therefore witness to the law, they make themselves guilty when they turn away.

The Good Samaritan, on the other hand, sees and does not turn away. He runs a risk by helping the half-dead man. Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans (Jn 4:9). If the man was a Jew, he might be very ungrateful when he recovered and found out that a Samaritan had helped him. Yet the Samaritan acted not only for the man’s present, binding up the wounds, he also provided for his future, taking him to an inn and paying in advance for his recuperation. He used his own wine to wash the wounds and oil to facilitate their healing, being both harsh (the wine would sting) and gentle (the oil would soothe). The Good Samaritan not only started the healing process, but also used his own animal to transport the half-dead man and took time out of his schedule to take him to an inn and gave his own money to support him in his recovery with a promise for the future.

The priest and the Levite cross the road to avoid the half-dead man. Some exegetes say that they may have done this to avoid his blood and any contamination or ritual impurity brought about by getting blood on themselves, in other words, to avoid breaking the law. But by going to such lengths to avoid breaking the law, they end up not fulfilling it either. Righteousness does not come from avoiding prohibited actions but from doing good actions (see Mt 9–14, on healing on the Sabbath). To not help the beaten man is almost to not believe in the mercy of God: that He will help you both fulfill the law and love your neighbor, or that He will forgive your supposed transgression in light of your act of mercy. It is not that they would be doing good through evil means: they would not be making themselves impure on purpose or as a means to help the man, but only accidentally. But in trying to avoid breaking the law, they actually fail to fulfill it, which is another way of breaking it (see Mt 23:23). In avoiding breaking one law, they trip over another law.

Christ points the way to the fulfillment of the law, a positive perspective, rather than to not breaking the law, a negative attitude. As St. Paul says, “The whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:14). Further, rather than loving their neighbor, the priest and the Levite may even be said to be contributing to dei-cide. They leave to die the half-dead man who is a human being made in the image of God. While the Good Samaritan may not have been thinking of ritual impurity when he stopped to help, he was able both to help and to continue on his journey. Having mercy did not preclude fulfilling his goal. Fulfillment of the law is not found in building a fence around the law so that one does not even come close to breaking it, but its fulfillment is found in mercy. Mercy is the practical application of the law, that is, not isolating oneself from the law, but absorbing the law into oneself making the law one with oneself and thereby fulfilling it.

Mercy

The word “mercy” is used twenty-three times (by my count) in the Gospels; and fourteen of those times, it is used in reference to having mercy on the sick, suffering, deformed, or barren. Jesus is the perfect Good Samaritan, having mercy on the sick and healing them.

The Greek verbs ending the three verses (31–33) describing the actions of the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan also shed light on what mercy is. The Greek verb α?ντιπαρ?ρχομαι ending verses 31 and 32 means to pass by on the opposite side. This contrasts with the verb ending verse 33, σπλαγχν?ζομαι, which means to feel compassion or mercy. The Greek verb used in verses 31–32 implies opposition and moving away versus the inwardness and drawing close of the verb in verse 33. An implication is that the priest and the Levite were moved to oppose the half-dead man and drew away from him. In contrast, the Good Samaritan was moved to alliance with the half-dead man and drew close to him. At the end the lawyer describes the Good Samaritan not as simply having feelings of compassion, but as having active compassion or mercy (το` ??λεος).

Twice in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus pointed his listeners to the passage “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Mt 9:10, with regard to eating with sinners; Mt 12:7, with regard to breaking the law about working on the Sabbath). This is the answer to the lawyer’s question about what to “do to inherit eternal life”: have mercy—have mercy on your neighbor, that is, on all human beings, especially those you come into contact with who are in need. Jesus even went farther than the story of Cain in Genesis, who asked God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gn 4:9). Not only are we our brother’s keeper, but our neighbor’s keeper also and the stranger’s keeper. And this is mercy: to see, touch, and aid all those we find in need. Mercy fully and abundantly fulfills the law.

Notes

¹ Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est (2005), no. 31, https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html.

² See, e.g., St. John Chrysostom, in Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, vol. 3, Luke, eds. Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Cardinal Newman (1841; London: The Saint Austin Press, 1997), 375; St. Ambrose, “Two Books Concerning Repentance,” bk. 1, chap. 6, no. 28, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 10, Ambrose: Selected Works and Letters, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.); St. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 15, chap. 27, or “Tractate 43,” no. 11, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st ser., vol. 7, St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John; Homilies on the First Epistle of John; Soliloquies, ed. ed. Philip Schaff (New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886); Pope Benedict XV, the encyclical Pacem, Dei Munus Pulcherrimum (1920), no. 11. For Pope Pius XI, the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (1937), no. 35.

³ See, e.g., Pope John Paul II, Address to the Participants in the International Symposium Sponsored by the National Foundation for Cancer Research (April 27, 1984), https://vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1984/april/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19840427_gruppo-scienziati.html; Pope Benedict XVI, Message for the Fourteenth World Day of the Sick (December 8, 2005), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/sick/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20051208_world-day-of-the-sick-2006_en.html; and Address to the Sick at the Conclusion of Mass for the Fifteenth World Day of the Sick (February 11, 2007), https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2007/february/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070211_messa-malati.html.

⁴ See, e.g., Pope John Paul II, Address to the Italian Odontologists Holding National Congress in Rome (March 28, 2000), no. 2, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2000/jan-mar/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000328_odontologists-jubilee_en.html; Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care (March 22, 2007), https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2007/march/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070322_pc-salute.html.

⁵ Jordan Aumann, Christian Spirituality in the Catholic Tradition (1985; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1994), chap. 1.

⁶ Ambrose, “Two Books Concerning Repentance,” bk. 1, chap. 6, no. 28.