On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, three worlds collide around one broken body. The parable of the Good Samaritan is not merely a story about helping strangers—it is a diagnosis of the human condition, revealing three distinct ways of being in the world (Luke 10: 25-37).
The Exploiter: What I Have Is Mine, and What You Have Is Also Mine
The parable begins with violence. Thieves strip a man, beat him, and leave him half-dead by the roadside. These are the exploiters—those who see the world as a zero-sum game where their gain necessitates another's loss. They recognize no boundary between mine and yours; everything is potentially theirs for the taking.
The exploiter's world is built on predation. What matters is not mutual flourishing but personal accumulation. The beaten man on the road is not a person but an opportunity—someone with possessions to be seized, vulnerability to be leveraged, dignity to be trampled. We meet exploiters not only in dark alleys but in boardrooms and political offices, in systems that extract without replenishing, in relationships that consume without nourishing. The exploiter asks: "What can I take from you?" Their philosophy is simple and brutal: your loss is my gain.
This is the anti-kingdom, the world organized around appetite and power. It is Cain asking, "Am I my brother's keeper?" while his brother's blood cries from the ground. It is the empire that crucifies prophets and the market that commodifies souls.
The Upright: What You Have Is Yours, and What I Have Is Mine
Then come the priest and the Levite—religious professionals, men of the law, keepers of ritual purity. They see the wounded man and pass by on the other side. We are quick to condemn them, but their logic is not unfamiliar to us.
These are the upright, the justice-oriented, the rigid people of the world. They understand boundaries. They respect property. What is yours is yours; what is mine is mine. They have duties—temple obligations, ritual requirements, legal restrictions. Touching a bleeding body could render them ceremonially unclean, unable to perform their sacred duties.
The upright are not evil; they are careful. They have responsibilities, after all. They follow the rules. They do not steal, do not cheat, do not exploit. They maintain order. They are, in their own eyes, good people. But their goodness has limits—precise, calculated limits. The upright ask: "What am I obligated to do?" They fulfill their duties, pay their dues, keep their side of the bargain. They do not take what is not theirs, but neither do they give what is not required.
This is the world of transaction and contract, of rights and responsibilities clearly delineated. It is better than the world of the exploiter—far better. But it is not yet the Kingdom of God. It is justice without mercy, law without love, boundaries without bridges. The tragedy of the upright is that they can walk past suffering with a clear conscience. Their hands are clean, their accounts balanced, their obligations met. They have done nothing wrong—and therein lies everything that is missing.
The Good: What You Have Is Yours, and What I Have Is Also Yours
Finally comes the Samaritan—the outsider, the heretic, the one who should not even be in this story. He sees the same wounded man and is moved with compassion. He does not calculate. He does not consult his calendar or his conscience about minimum requirements. He simply responds. The Samaritan pours oil and wine on the wounds—his resources becoming the stranger's healing. He places the man on his own animal—his convenience sacrificed for another's need. He takes him to an inn, cares for him through the night, and leaves money for continued care—his time, his wealth, his future plans all bent toward one broken person he will likely never see again.
This is the ethic of the Kingdom: What you have is yours, and what I have is also yours. Not through coercion, not through obligation, but through love. The good do not ask, "What can I take from you?" like the exploiter, nor "What must I give you?" like the upright. They ask, "What do you need?" The Samaritan operates from abundance, not scarcity. He sees connection where others see separation. He recognises that the man on the road is not a stranger but a neighbour—not because of proximity or ethnicity or shared belief, but because of shared humanity, shared vulnerability, shared need for mercy.
This is revolutionary. The exploiter makes victims. The upright avoids entanglement. But the good creates community. The Samaritan refuses to let the wounded man remain alone in his suffering. He binds his wounds—literally and symbolically binding his own life to this stranger's fate.
The Question That Remains
Jesus tells this parable in response to a lawyer's question: "Who is my neighbour?" It is a question designed to limit obligation—to draw a circle around those we must care for and leave everyone else outside it. The lawyer wants to be upright; he wants to know the minimum required. But Jesus flips the question. He does not ask, "Who is your neighbour?" but rather, "Who proved to be a neighbour?" The question is not about identifying who deserves our care but about what kind of person we will be. Will we be exploiters, upright rule-followers, or good neighbours?
The Kingdom of God is not a place for those who hoard or those who merely abstain from hoarding. It is a place for those who give—not from surplus but from substance, not from obligation but from compassion, not calculating the cost but counting the privilege of being able to help.
Living Between Worlds
We live between these three worlds. The exploiter's world beckons with promises of power and pleasure. The upright world offers the comfort of clean hands and clear conscience. But the Kingdom calls us further—into the uncomfortable, inconvenient, costly love that sees a beaten stranger and cannot pass by.
The journey from exploiter to upright is significant—it is the journey from predation to principle, from violence to law. But the journey from upright to good is transformation—from law to love, from justice to mercy, from duty to delight in giving.
Which world do we inhabit? More importantly, which world are we building? Every day we encounter people stripped, beaten, and left half-dead by life's cruelties—poverty, addiction, loneliness, despair, injustice. Do we rob them further with our indifference? Do we pass by with our justifications? Or do we stop, pour out our oil and wine, and bind up their wounds? The Good Samaritan became good not by birth or belief but by action. He saw suffering and let it move him. He felt compassion and let it cost him. He encountered need and let it change his plans.
This is the invitation of the parable: to move from a world organised around taking or protecting to a world organised around giving. To recognize that what we have—our time, our resources, our very selves—is not ours to hoard or even merely to keep, but ours to offer. For in the economy of the Kingdom, the one who says "What I have is also yours" discovers a truth the exploiter and the upright never learn: that in giving we receive, in losing we find, and in dying to ourselves we finally, fully live.
The road from Jerusalem to Jericho runs through every human heart. On that road, we choose not once but constantly who we will be: exploiter, upright, or good. The wounded wait. The question remains: "Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour?"
Go and do likewise.
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