This parable is so well known that most Christians tend to think it's easily understood. That's why it's especially important to spend some time reading and meditating on it before you teach this week.

As with many other parables, this one is part of a larger story. An expert in the law (that is, the Torah or first five books of the Bible) asks Jesus a question in order to test him. It's not an unusual question to ask a rabbi, but perhaps the legal expert thought Jesus would trip himself up with an unusual answer. "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Cleverly, Jesus turns the question around: "What do you think? How do you read the law?"

The legal expert gives a wonderful answer: "I must love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, and my neighbor as myself." He may have heard this answer directly from Jesus, since Jesus often put these two commandments, found in separate passages, together. Loving God above all and loving your neighbor as yourself are at the heart of biblical truth. Upon hearing his answer, Jesus says to the legal expert, "You're exactly right; do this and you will live."

It's important to understand that Jesus is not commending salvation by works. Loving God with all one's heart, soul, strength, and mind means that we must put our trust in his love and grace. Living in God's love means that we extend that loving relationship to our neighbor.

The law expert was not satisfied. He wanted to know who his neighbor was and how far out this neighborly love should extend. At that time, most Jews believed that their neighbor was a fellow Jew, and that that was as far as neighborly love should be extended.

As usual, rather than delivering a straight-out sermon, Jesus told a story---a story of threes. In the story, three people make their way down the steep, dangerous, lonely road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Each of them notices another traveler who has been stripped, beaten, and left lying unconscious beside the road. If he had been closer to the road, the travelers could have recognized if he was a Jew or not, and if he had been conscious they could have asked him.

The first passerby was a Jewish priest. Not knowing if the wounded person was Jew or Gentile, or even if he was dead or alive, the priest passed by. He did not want to risk ritual defilement by touching the man, since coming into contact with a dead body made a person unclean. The Levite did the same, probably for the same reasons.

The listeners may have expected the third traveler to be an ordinary Jew. Instead Jesus tells them that it is a Samaritan---a member of a group of half-breeds hated and despised by most Jews. But this lowly Samaritan becomes the hero of the story. And what is his motivation? Simply that he had compassion for the injured man. This was an act of great mercy, beyond all the expectations and requirements of the law.

"Who is my neighbor?" That's the central question of the story, and the central question the church must constantly ask of itself. So, what is the answer? Jesus doesn't give a direct answer in the parable, but he points in the direction where we can find it. Wherever we might be, our neighbor is that person in need of mercy and compassion. The identity of the neighbor changes from day to day, even from hour to hour, but the driving force of divine love remains the same. People who love God also love their neighbor and show that love in concrete acts of care and kindness.