We think we know the story of the Good Samaritan. Two religious people pass by a wounded man on the road. The Samaritan, part of a despised group, outsiders, the marginalized, stops and gives aid. Extravagant.

Reading the story, people often use it to stir up feelings of guilt. Like, Why aren’t we showing this kind of love to other people? “Who is our neighbor?” the lawyer asks. But if anyone is feeling guilty as they read the story, stop. It won’t take you where Jesus wants you to go. Jesus is not trying to make the lawyer feel guilty. That won’t help the poor.

The key to the story is where Jesus places the religious scholar inside it. If Christ had said it was the religious leader who stopped to help a wounded Samaritan, the lawyer would have laughed. You just didn’t do that. There were too many racial and class barriers.

Jesus didn’t do that. He puts the Israelite on the road, and the hated Samaritan as the one who helps. The question he’s asking us, and the lawyer, is: What if we were the ones in the road? What if we were bleeding to death? And what if our only hope was an act of free grace from someone who owed us nothing? What if our only hope was radical neighbor love? Would we want grace?

Jesus is not giving rules. He’s offering a dynamic. What if we were on the ground, saved only by the grace of someone who owed us nothing? Get rid of the moralism. Get rid of the pride that makes us look down and laugh at other people. Jesus is saying: until we are radically neighbored, we will never have the kind of ministry to others that flows from knowing the grace we’ve received.

Jesus turns the question around on the lawyer. It starts with, Who is my neighbor? But at the end, the question becomes, Who was a neighbor to you? Who was a neighbor to the man in need? And the lawyer has to answer: the one who showed mercy, the Samaritan.

Jesus isn’t giving a rule, but a change of heart. A dynamic.

We are all self-justified. Every one of us. We want to justify ourselves. But the gospel says that Jesus Christ came into the world. He came onto the road. He owes us nothing, and we owe him everything.

He demands a love that cannot be forced. He requires a kind of love that cannot be reduced to obligation. Neighboring requires something that cannot come as a response to a rule, but only as a response to free grace. Only then can we become true neighbors to others.