Go and Do Likewise
The Rev. Dr. Karin Ekholm, July 13, 2025
Reading: Luke 10:25-37
Two years ago, I spent the summer at Washington Hospital Center in DC completing my certification as a clinical chaplain. Our training took place on the ground. Once we received our badges, a tour, and instructions on how to charge the pager, we were assigned to various floors and put on shifts in the trauma unit.
The educational component took place through conversations with a cohort and supervisor in which we reflected together on pastoral encounters with patients, their loved ones, hospital staff, and first responders.
Two people played a special role in my formation, both are Muslim women, who wear headscarves and serve a population that is mostly Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, or not religious.
One was my supervisor, who shared a striking teaching from her tradition: “A visitor walking to visit a sick person will be wading in the mercy of God,” and as they sit with the patient, they are “immersed” in his mercy. These images certainly reflect my experience of God’s palpable presence among the sick.
The second woman was a psychologist who had recently come from Iran and was completing advanced chaplaincy training. One day, she arrived late to lunch, worn out from a busy shift in trauma, and as soon as she sat down, her pager sounded. I urged her to eat, I’d take this call.
The patient carried into the trauma bay on a stretcher was badly wounded and profoundly agitated. Among the cacophony of shouts from medical staff and police, I heard the words, “Good Samaritan”.
The patient was an African American man, Sam, who had been biking to work in the sweltering noon heat. He had come across a man lying on the sidewalk, and when he knelt down to help, the person on the ground was startled and turned on him.
Sam suffered serious injuries, and spooked by the assault, he fervently resisted medical care. Although he was in critical condition, he warded off aid. When the head nurse realized he wasn’t making progress, he enlisted the help of another. She responded to Sam’s changing needs by cycling through various approaches—soothing, bartering, tough love, and even humor—until he felt safe enough to let the team treat him.
Once his pain was managed, what he wanted most was a turkey sandwich with mayo. I’m pretty sure she broke unit rules, but she worked it out, and deftly used the sandwich as a bargaining chip. Once his wounds were treated, he was propped up and ate in peace.
In our culture, the label “Good Samaritan” is commonly applied to someone who helps strangers in distress, and while this is certainly a worthy deed, the parable Jesus tells conveys much more than bidding listeners to lend a hand to unknown persons. In fact, the words “Good Samaritan” aren’t in the text. The story is not as straightforward as often presented, and its point cannot be boiled down to a maxim or ethical teaching alone. To discern the meaning of the parable, we need to approach it with an eye to the framing story of the lawyer who wants to test Jesus.
In this society, lawyers were professional experts in Jewish law, whose task it was to interpret and give applications for everyday life. The word translated “test” carries a negative nuance of probing to expose weakness, and signals that this is not a sincere inquiry into what it takes to inherit eternal life.
As was customary for Rabbis, Jesus turns the question on him to ask what the Law teaches. The lawyer gets it right, but Jesus doesn’t react to praise him as a star student, but rather responds by essentially saying, “you know what is required, now live it out.”
Rather than “do this and live”, the lawyer strives to assert himself by continuing to test Jesus. There’s irony here. He wants to keep talking rather than doing the hard work of love in action.
As someone who has spent a lot of time in school and longs too much for affirmation that my right answers are right, I’m sympathetic to the lawyer’s plight. And besides, he’s a lawyer, so of course he has a follow-up question to clarify things. These two commandments to love God and neighbor are so all-encompassing and broad, I can see why he wants limits placed on who qualifies. Whom, exactly, is he called to love as himself? The parable is Jesus’ response to this particular question.
The beauty of parables is that the evocative imagery lingers in our minds, prompting us to continue uncovering layers of meaning. These stories invite us to identify with different characters, and this requires that we appreciate the dilemma of those who passed by the wounded man without helping.
Priests’ primary duties revolved around temple rituals, including offering sacrifices and conducting religious services, and Levites supported this work. In Luke’s Gospel, they are generally portrayed in a positive light (1:5; 5:14; 7:14). Jesus’ audience knew that these people were restricted by purity regulations from contact with polluting elements, including human blood. The problem was that their duty to perform sacred functions in the Temple on behalf of the people seemed to be in conflict with the Torah’s call to charity.
Other factors may have been fear that they, too, might be attacked. Or perhaps, they were unsure of the wounded man’s ethnic heritage, and like the lawyer, opted for safety over an unqualified interpretation of the Mosaic command “to love your neighbor.”
By recognizing the conflicting duties of the priest and Levite, we see that this parable as more complex, and these characters become more relatable. Who among us does not regularly find ourselves assessing which responsibilities and duties outweigh others. To whom do we most owe our attention and resources? Few things burden us quite like second-guessing how we once allocated our time, talent, and treasure.
The third man who comes along surely recognized the danger of stopping to help—the thieves might still be lurking behind boulders—and he, too, had things to do once he deposited the wounded man at the inn.
What would have been most shocking to listeners is that Jesus identifies him as a Samaritan. While both Jews and Samaritans stemmed from ancient Israelite roots, they developed distinct views on sacred sites, scriptures, the law, and the anticipated Messiah, which led to a complex and often hostile relationship.
To the lawyer, a Samaritan would be the last person who would act compassionately. When Jesus asks who the neighbor was to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers, the lawyer won’t even name him as a Samaritan, but rather answers, “the one who showed him mercy.” And for the second time, Jesus replies, “go and do.”
Jesus’ charge is to prioritize acts of mercy above all other obligations, regardless of risk, regardless of whether we have any connection or affection for those in need. Such behavior is anything but sensible, it’s unlikely to garner approval from society, and will come at considerable cost of time, labor, and resources. And yet, this is ultimately the answer to the lawyer’s initial question of what it takes to inherit eternal life. Loving God and loving human beings is inextricably bound, and loving God entails that we act mercifully towards every person we encounter.
This parable is more than a moral lesson: it is about the transformative power of God at work in all whom we meet on the road, a power that brings us into fullness of life—eternal life—even here and now.
I experienced something of this fullness of God’s love and mercy in the face of risk at Washington Hospital Center: in the compassion of Muslim chaplains who cared for people of other faiths and ethnic backgrounds, of nurses who worked tirelessly to mend bodies and honor the dignity of those whom they treated, and of Sam, a man marginalized by society, who paid a real price for reaching out to help a man lying on the road.
In the words of Jesus, “Go and do likewise.”