Why Should I Be the Good Samaritan?

I live in a city that has so many beggars and homeless people I could be the Good Samaritan every time I walk down the street. However, I am not and would not want to be. These misfits are social rejects who would treat me the way the robbers in the parable treated their victim if they had the chance.

This may sound harsh and unfeeling but I speak from experience. I have been robbed twice outside the main cathedral in Praça da Sé when thieves stole my crucifix pendant. I was not beaten but received a deep cut that required treatment when a thief gouged my neck with his filthy fingernails.

I invite any reader who is in São Paulo to visit the downtown area and see for himself or herself the thousands of human debris littering the streets. These are people who have ended up in this position because they have no respect for themselves. They feel no shame as they lie in the gutter, unwashed, in rags, lost in their own self-centered worlds.

Some are alcoholics, some are drug addicts, some are mentally ill, some are just dropouts and some are genuinely out of luck, having lost a job or home. There is no shortage of help available – not from individual Good Samaritans but from the municipal authorities, voluntary groups and, of course, the Catholic Church – but the overwhelming majority are not prepared to make the effort to pull themselves out of the hole they have dug for themselves.

There is no comparison between them and the traveler helped by the Good Samaritan. He was the innocent victim of vicious killers who robbed him then left him for dead. Yet the evil ones, these criminals, are almost footnotes in the parable and criticism is not levelled at them but at the two clerics who walked by and left him unaided.

Perhaps Jesus intended singling out clerics – a priest and Levite – as he was always criticizing the religious and legal authorities of his time. However, this is not how the parable is usually interpreted. The two clerics represent all of us and the message is that we should love our neighbors even though in the case of the Samaritan he is not a literal neighbor but a foreigner.

On the other hand by paying little attention to the real sinners, i.e. the robbers, Jesus was perhaps acknowledging that evil is always present and will never be overcome. We just have to accept it. Jesus, in turn, was crucified between two thieves, one of whom is ironically generally referred to as the “good” thief as if such a thing were possible.

© John Brander Fitzpatrick 2025