Free Pilgrimage by Lynn Austin

cliffs and mountains and ravines; I can see how it would provide plenty of places for outlaws to hide and ambush unsuspecting travelers. This was a main road in Jesus’ day, not only for pilgrims coming to attend the feasts but also for Jerusalem’swealthy citizens who loved to travel down to the spa and hot springs in Jericho. And the Temple priests were among the very wealthiest Israelites.
    As I climb this road and see the setting of the parable, I open my Bible and read the entire account (Luke 10:25–37). The story is part of an extended conversation that Jesus had with an expert in the Law. This expert already knew all the right answers but he “stood up to test Jesus,” posing the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered with questions of His own: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” Rabbis and disciples always taught and learned this way, posing questions, searching for answers, digging into the tiniest details of what each word and letter in that word meant. In fact, Jewish schools still teach Torah this way.
    The expert gave a very orthodox, acceptable reply to Jesus’ question: “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor,” two commandments found in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But the discussion wasn’t over for this legal expert because “he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” He wanted a checklist, a set of definite rules and regulations so he would know exactly who he was required to love and who he was not, when he was required to love them, and where, and how. Maybe then he could find a loophole that would excuse him. Jesus answered the question “Who is my neighbor?” with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
    A Jewish traveler on this Jericho road was attacked and left for dead. The first person to pass by was a priest who didn’t stop to help him. In fact, the priest made a wide circuitaround the man. The second man, a Levite, did the same. I had always assumed that they did so because the rules for priests found in Leviticus 21:1–4 forbade them to make themselves unclean by touching a dead body. “Sorry, I have to stay pure. It’s part of my job description.”
    But when I looked at a Jewish commentary regarding these purity regulations—which the legal expert in Jesus’ day surely would have been familiar with—I found a surprise. The Jewish sages agreed that if a body is isolated and the victim has no one to bury him, then even the high priest has a moral obligation to care for the person and bury him with dignity, even if the act makes the priest ritually unclean. Not only that, but Jesus said that the priest and the Levite were on their way down to Jericho, perhaps for a little vacation? They could have purified themselves of any defilement before returning to work in the Temple. But of course, that would have interfered with their massage at the spa.
    When both the priest and the Levite passed by on the other side, they might have appeared to be religiously correct, but they were far from the compassionate heart of God. The priests in Christ’s day probably would have ignored the man, too, as they headed down to the hot springs, because in all of the New Testament stories that feature them, they seem greatly lacking in love: willing to stone the woman caught in adultery; following the letter of the Law but looking for loopholes around it; totally without compassion toward blind men or crippled women if their healing took place on the Sabbath. No wonder Jesus criticized a group of legal experts by saying, “You give a tenth of your spices . . . but you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23).
    Using the Law as an excuse to ignore a fellow human being in need is exactly what Jesus taught against when He accused the religious leaders