Radical Grace
Jul- Aug 2007

Compassion: Signposts on the Jericho Road

by Allan Dwight Callahan

The twin commands to love God and neighbor are what German biblical scholar Johannes Weiss called the Kern und Stern of biblical faith, its center and its star, its essence and its brilliance. In Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan we find a narrative definition of that love. Martin Luther King, Jr. often referred to this love as the call to compassion on what he called “the Jericho Road of Life.”
The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)—perhaps Jesus’ most famous parable—offers us compelling signposts of compassion on the Jericho Road of Life.
The first signpost of compassion along the Jericho Road of life in the parable of the Good Samaritan is the sign of anonymity. Jesus has refused to disclose the identity of people in this parable: Jesus insists on telling us stories that tell us not who we are but what we are. And we only truly know what we are by what we do. Thus the actors of this parabolic drama have been upstaged by their action. There is no chorus as we find in a classical Greek tragedy, no extras, no supporting cast. Even the few principal players have little more than cameo roles. Who is the roadside victim? “A certain man.” Who are the diffident clergy? “A certain priest” and “a Levite.” Who is the Samaritan passerby who interrupts his itinerary with compassion? “A certain Samaritan.” Not much here for the dramatist to work with. This parable offers us vague characters with all the depth of a shadow.
The story of the fallen traveler and the compassionate Samaritan is a story of love that transcends identity. And so Jesus has left undeveloped the characters of his parabolic drama. The actors are without names. The Jericho highway robbers get away without a trace. There is no security video, no license plate number of the getaway car, no police description. We have nothing by which to identify any of them in a line-up. Nor can we identify the victim: his face has been so marred by the violence of equally anonymous assailants that even if we knew him we might not recognize him. Jesus insists on the radical anonymity in the telling of his tale because the love that Jesus is talking about doesn’t care who you are (or even who you think you are). It is love that does not require a resume. It is a love that does not check references. It is love that does not demand a positive form of identification.
The second signpost of compassion along the Jericho Road of life in the parable of the Good Samaritan is the signpost of altruism. The traditional title of Jesus’ parable refers to this Samaritan man, this nameless, faceless traveler on the Jericho road of life, as “the Good Samaritan.” But nowhere in the story is the Samaritan called “good.” The language of the good is wholly absent from this text.

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