Compassion – Luke 10.29-37
Jim Wallis says: “Faith is always personal but never private.”
In the parable of the good Samaritan the priest and the Levite moved to the other side of the road when they saw someone in need. While on the other hand the Samaritan was moved with compassion. That word for compassion is σπλαγχνίζομαι [splagchnizomai —— you can pronounce it this way: splangkh-nid’-zom-ahee]. Splagchnizomai means to be moved inwardly (splanchna – intestines, bowels) to be moved with compassion. This same word is used in the story of the Prodigal Son – the father is moved with compassion when he sees the son.
The Priest & the Levite did the right things – for they had to stay ceremonially clean—for their religious duties mandated that they could not touch blood or a corpse. If they had done that, they would not have been able to perform the good things the Lord had called them to do. The Samaritan is moved with compassion and becomes unclean and sacrifices his time, possessions, money, and vehicle. Jesus then says in v37 to go and do likewise.
We realize that this story of the Samaritan is about eternal life (v25). And then in v28 – Jesus says: “do this, and you will live.” The eternal life that is found in Jesus Christ is found in the living out of loving God and loving neighbor. It is not an intellectual pursuit of having the right answer. Actually, who cares about having the right answer if there is no doing – if there is no going. You can have all the education in the world – and if you do not live it out – then it is worth nothing. Then that degree is not worth the paper that it is printed on. For Jesus says: “do this, and you will live.” Having the right answer does not mean that you know God – memorizing all of the answers to the test does not make you a follower of Jesus. It is in the doing that we find the life that is really life. It is living a life devoted to God and God only. And the life that is found in loving God is found in loving our neighbor.
Karl Barth says: “God wants in His freedom actually not to be without man but with him and in the same freedom not against him but for him, and that apart from or even counter to what man deserves. He wants in fact to be man’s partner, his almighty and compassionate Saviour.”
Karl Barth continues by saying: “For this reason, too, theology cannot be carried on in the private lighthouses of some sort of merely personal discoveries and opinions. It can be carried on only in the context of the questioning and answering of the Christian community and in the rigorous service of its commission to all men.”
Lesslie Newbigin says: “That is why I am suggesting that the only possible hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation which believes it.”