The Limits of Love

We often engage the parables as if they are timeless truths containing a single message. When Jesus tells a parable there are many truths revealed. Parables often unsettle our ideas about how the world is and how it should be. Jesus’ parables use images and situations that were familiar to his listeners. They begin with the familiar and as the parable progresses it moves from the familiar to the strange. From normal to unsettling and upsetting.

The story we often call the parable of the good Samaritan is sometimes summed up as a call to be kind to each other. That’s not wrong. It’s a fine place to start. But it is not where the parable leaves us.

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus, “Teacher, he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this and you will live.”

But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, 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 up on him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then 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.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” Luke 10:25-37 NRSVue

When the expert in the law asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he was not asking how to get to heaven after he died. “Eternal life” is a phrase that means life in the coming age or era of God. People then believed time moved from age to age. A modern fictional example would be in The Lord of the Rings series where the age of Elves gives way to the age of Men. The question was about how one moved from life in the current age to life in the age of the kingdom of God, where life will be “on earth as it is in heaven.”

When Jesus asked him what the law said, the expert didn’t hesitate. His answer that one should love God and their neighbor was a standard response. This wasn’t a ground breaking insight. It’s pretty much what everyone thought. Which is not to say it isn’t accurate and important. It’s the answer people tossed off then and now without too much thought about what it actually means.

Jesus acknowledged the expert’s correct answer and then reminded him that it is not enough to know the correct answer, one also has to live it. Now the legal expert has to think about what the implications are and he needs to know what the rules are. What exactly are the parameters. What are the boundaries? And he wants reassurance that he has actually done what is required of him.

The expert asks, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus replies, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…”

This parable is extremely familiar. It’s been, in better and worse ways, extensively written and preached about. We sometimes, reduce the parable to a morality tale of the “despised” Samaritan helping the wounded traveler. What a great guy! And oh those bad religious elites! Just be nice to people. We tend to personalize it. Individual people need to be nice to other individuals.

Christian interpretations sometimes become casually anti semitic. We might fall back on unthinking and unfounded ideas of “ritual purity”. We might criticize the priest and the Levite as being religious elites, more concerned with purity and religious duty than with compassion. Our unspoken assumption is that as Christians we will do better. We must stop with these sorts of interpretations. They are simply incorrect. In Jewish law there is no excuse for failing to save a life. Christians sometimes overstate the importance of preserving “ritual purity” while at the same time dismissing it as fussy religiosity. In day to day life, it wasn’t a major concern. In Judaism, being a priest or a Levite were inherited positions. There were lots of priests and Levites who took their turn serving in the Temple and then returned home. Their religious duties were not their main work. Being a priest or a Levite does not necessarily imply wealth or status.¹ Let’s abandon the idea that somehow this parable rebukes legalistic Judaism and endorses enlightened Christianity.

As with most parables, there is a lot going on here. There are layers of meaning and instruction. I would like us to focus on two ideas as we read this parable. First, like many of Jesus’ parables and teaching, this is a critique of community and social structures. Secondly, Jesus once again calls us to enlarge and expand our understanding of what God desires of us, as individuals and as communities.

What if, instead of simply being individuals, the people in the parable also represent larger entities. This story contains an expert in the law, a priest, a Levite, and a non citizen outsider. Are the expert in the law, the priest, and the Levite examples who represent the religious and political status quo of the time? As we read this story, we might wonder, in our day, who would embody the current status quo? Who are the religious/legal experts? Who represents the religious communities of our day? The priest and the Levite were not necessarily wealthy or in positions of great power and authority. They could have been what we would now consider typical, faithful church people. If we were to retell the parable, would there be a pastor and a church council member?

If the people in the parable do represent cultural or political or religious structures, does that change how we think about the parable?² Do our systems and our structures allow churches and governments to pass by those in need? Do they encourage us to excuse a systemic lack of care? Do our churches and governments have neighbors? If so, who are they, and what is our responsibility to them?

The people who are clearly respectable, religious people, part of the accepted and acceptable religious and cultural society pass by the injured person. Jesus does not tell us why. I suspect because the reasons, the excuses don’t matter. As modern readers, we are faced with the realization that our personal reasons and our societal reasons for ignoring someone also don’t matter.

The Samaritan, a person who doesn’t belong, who is out of place, who is not part of the community, sees the man, is moved with compassion and helps him. As I said earlier, often we reduce this parable to the lesson, “be nice”. What the Samaritan does goes far beyond nice. The Samaritan goes out of his way to help. He uses his own resources to treat the man. He puts the man on his own animal. He takes the man to an inn and cares for him. All this takes time. The next day, the second day of his involvement, seeing the man needs continued care the Samaritan makes arrangements with the innkeeper for care and assumes financial responsibility. He also commits to following up, “when I come back.” There is no “payback” for the Samaritan. This isn’t his community, his religion. No one is going to return the favor. There won’t be any gratitude or accolades or community recognition. There won’t be any financial gain, in fact this action costs him money. We should ask ourselves, seriously ask, why did he do this? We shouldn’t let ourselves off the hook with an easy answer.

It is an extraordinary series of actions. I find myself thinking that I’m not sure I could or would do all that. I suspect Jesus’ audience thought similarly. Who would have the capacity to offer that level of care? Who would have the time, the materials, the capacity, and the money to do this? This is why I think there is a societal component to this parable. This level of care requires society wide intentionality. And societal commitment. Remember the commandments in Torah are to the entire community. The community is to figure out how they are going to care for each other, kin and alien.

Where does the boundary marker lie? Who are we responsible for? Who is responsible for us? Who is ours to take care of and who isn’t? This is all part of the legal expert’s question. Jesus response is that there is no boundary. There is no us and them. The ones you thought would take care of you, your kin, might not. The one you thought had no responsibility, might take care of you. There is no boundary. There is no wall. There is no limit to love.

Earlier this month, the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill that repealed undocumented adults’ eligibility for the state subsidized health insurance program. Republican representative Isaac Schultz said- during the floor debate, “The role of the church- the role of people of faith- is to care for your neighbors. Yes. But not in this instance, specifically.” ³ Sit with that for a while. If not this instance, what instance? Specifically.

Who is our neighbor? Where are the boundaries? Where are the walls?

Teacher, he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this and you will live.”

But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus asks, Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor…?” I imagine the legal expert paused for a second and took a deep breath, because he knew what Jesus is going to say. “Go and do likewise.”

This is not meant to be easy. Jesus’ intent is to disrupt and to disturb the expert and his disciples.

“Do this and you will live. Go and do likewise.”

Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine writes, “If we stop with the easy lessons, good though they may be, we lose the way Jesus’s first followers would have heard the parables, and we lose the genius of Jesus’ teaching. Those followers, like Jesus himself, were Jews, and Jews knew parables were more than children’s stories or restatements of common knowledge. They knew that parables and the tellers of parables were there to prompt them to see the world in a different way, to challenge, and at times to indict.

We might be better off thinking less about what they “mean” and more about what they can “do”: remind, provoke, refine, confront, disturb…”⁴

Let’s sit with this provoking, disturbing parable and its challenging questions, “Who is our neighbor?” “What is our responsibility to each other?” Jesus doesn’t grant exemptions for cost or for inconvenience. Jesus doesn’t allow exemptions for strangers or enemies. He looks at us when we ask, “Who is a neighbor?” His answer is “The one who showed mercy.”

“Go and do likewise.”

1. See Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, “The Good Samaritan” pages 77-115, HarperOne, 2014. Also remember Luke tells us about Zechariah serving his turn of duty in the Temple. It wasn’t his main job. ↩︎
2. In Jesus’ time there religion and government were not separate entities. Because in our time they are, we need to consider both, religion and government so as not to lose the full implications of Jesus’ parable. ↩︎
3. From the Minnesota Reformer, June 9, 2025, https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/06/09/legislature-to-repeal-minnesotacare-for-undocumented-adults/ ↩︎
4. Levine, p 4. ↩︎

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