Jesus: The Good Samaritan

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on October 29, 2025 by Jolley Gosnold

Reading for address: Luke 10:25-37

As many of you will know, in my earlier career I was a theatre director and writer. And one of the aspects of that role that energised me the most was exploring old stories that have stood the test of time, classic plays like Greek tragedies, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and try to get beneath the surface of the story, to listen for the voice and intention of the writer and find a way to retell the story so it was authentic but fresh for audiences today. The first way to do this, is to get rid of all my assumptions about the text and really listen to it. Not that different to what we do in our lectio listening groups after this service. Not that different to how I approach preparing to preach on a passage from the Bible.

Take the Parable of the Good Samaritan for example.

At school, at the beginning and the end of each term, we held a service to bookend each season of being together and learning. Without fail, the reading was, by tradition, the Good Samaritan. It is a reading I have heard so often throughout my life that I can’t remember not knowing the story. I don’t remember it ever sounding fresh or as if I was hearing it for the first time. So, when I was challenged recently at theological college to try to do just that, I was excited to discover, as I rid myself of countless assumptions, that there was so much more to the story than I could have imagined.

The two preconceived ideas I had become most attached to were that: 1. We should see ourselves as the Samaritan. The story is about caring for your neighbour, and that we should not walk by on the other side but stop and help. And 2. That we should be shocked that a Samaritan stopped to help a man, I had always presumed to be a Jew although this is not in the text but if so may be seen as the enemy, and surprised that the priest and the Levite kept on walking.

While there is interesting and fertile ground in these readings, I would argue that these stories are too small and do not paint the full picture of the grace of God in the parable.

As you hear this story today, I wonder where you place yourself? It’s attractive to imagine we are the one who stops. Who helps. Who does everything that can to fix and help the poor and needy. But in my experience, more often in my life, I am reminded that I am the vulnerable one, I am the one discarded at the roadside, reaching out and seeking help. Help that can only come from God, who meets me on the road and lifts me up.

If we can remind ourselves today to cast God as the main character, maybe we might just realise that it’s not up to us to just simply be good moral citizens and fix the problems of the world, but instead admit our weakness, in humility accept that we do not have the answers nor all the power – but instead look for God in our friends, neighbours, strangers and the unexpected and willingly receive mercy from wherever it may come.

Which brings me to my second lifelong assumption. There is much to be gained from the story that the religious authorities walked by on the other side, while the enemy stopped and had mercy on the man beaten and suffering. It challenges us as the church to consider when we have been so wrapped up in our piety and important churchy things, and forgotten to notice and care for the vulnerable. But the priest and the Levite in the story behaved exactly as they were meant to. To anyone hearing Jesus story at the time of its telling, they would not for one second be expecting, like we might, that the former men would stop. If the priest or the Levite were to stop and engage with the man at the side of the road, ritually unclean and from outside their tribes, they would risk exclusion from the temple community and an inability to serve and perform their duties. It was not the done thing, and everyone hearing the story knows that. If we remove our twenty-first-century lens, and refocus through the eyes and minds of Jews in the first century, we might not give these two who pass by such a hard time, less, start to beat ourselves up for the times we have walked past and not looked out for the vulnerable. A tempting way of course to read any parable, but again – I say, it’s not about us. Or as Sam Wells has said many times in the past when interpreting the bible and particularly parables from a theocentric perspective: “It’s about Jesus, stupid!”.

So if you’ll allow me to reconnect to my roots as a theatre director for a second, we are going to recast this play.

In tonight’s performance of the Good Samaritan, the role of the man abandoned at the roadside will be played by us, human beings.

Starring as the Good Samaritan will be Jesus of Nazareth.

And I think that is perfect casting if I do say so myself.

So let’s retell the story:

Though created to live in harmony with one another, human beings have turned against each other. Through systemic sin, greed, the pursuit of power, or self-preservation, we have stripped, beaten, and discarded one another at the side of the road and left each other half-dead. And as people pass us by, unsure of how to respond, ill-equipped, or just thinking ‘not my problem’. Someone comes along and joins us, someone we don’t expect.

A baby. A vulnerable child. God incarnate. Born in the instability of political turmoil, violence, and poverty. He draws near to us and lives among us. He is moved with pity. He feels our pain, because he is experiencing it too. He lifts us up and takes the weight and burden of all that has happened to us, and leads us along the road towards safety, offers us a place to rest and through his care and boundaryless generosity begins our restoration back to how we were created to be.

And then, having been with us for a time, he leaves. He leaves but promises to come back. He leaves, but before leaving, equips the innkeeper with everything they need to take care of him.

Sometimes in the theatre we like to cast actors in multiple roles, so, likewise, in this story, I’m going to need you to do a quick change backstage and become the innkeepers.

As Jesus’s time with us comes to an end, he doesn’t just abandon us. He leaves behind the gift of two denarii, or perhaps the Holy Spirit would be a fitting actor for that role, so that he may be with us to the very end of the age and that we may be strengthened and supported to continue to care for one another. To fulfil the roles of the innkeeper and the half-dead man. God equips and provides for us to care for one another, and we are called to trust that in the end the bill will be settled and all will be well again. Our only duty in the meantime is to be with one another.

As Jesus finishes telling the story I argue is autobiographical, he asks the lawyer which of the three he thinks was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? Replying, “The one who showed him mercy”, the lawyer is pointing to Jesus. Jesus, in this telling, reveals himself to be our neighbour, the one who shows us mercy.

And so with his final words he says “Go and do likewise”. What is he commissioning the hearers of this story to do? To be the Good Samaritan? I don’t think so. That role is already cast.

What if he’s saying, accept mercy. Go and receive the mercy of God from those you don’t expect. I have abundantly given you everything you need. Look out for one another, not through your own strength but through my provision. Take care of one another now, and when I come back, which I will, I will repay you.

Amen.