Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Did you hear the one about the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan?

I know a good story when I hear one, and though I’m no theologian, it’s easy to recognize and understand the presence of God between the lines of even the simplest Bible stories. Of course, there are no simple Bible stories, except on the surfaces. And how about a story of profound truth in answer to a question? Here is one.

This simple question, asked of Jesus by a scholar of the law, was meant to have an easy answer. But it runs much deeper than that. Jesus had just finished an exchange with the lawyer, who answered Jesus that one should “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.” Also, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” (NCV) After Jesus’ affirmation, the scholar’s question was “And who is my neighbor?” A good question. The questioner, this scholar, was probably thinking that the answer would be something about including those who live near you, those you know well, those who share your ideas, geographical location, and demographic. But the answer was much different. The answer was unexpected. In a modern context, imagine considering the most obnoxious, vile, coarse, unclean (or whatever) person you can think of and…realizing that he or she is your ‘neighbor‘.  And not just your neighbor. This is the one you should help. It’s the person you should bring home to meet the family and have dinner with. This is the one you should love as much as you love yourself. Huh? That wasn’t the answer that was expected then, and probably not the one expected today. Jews and Samaritans didn’t like each other…no, that’s not quite right. According to reports, they hated each other. They each thought of the other group as unclean and unholy and…wrong. So, how could this be?

As with the unexpected answers, there are some humdinger questions in the Bible, (One that comes to mind is Pontius Pilate’s question: What is truth? But that is for another essay.) and this one is no different, or less complex. Of course, implicit in the law scholar’s question is not just ‘who’, but to what extent is a person one’s neighbor. Jesus, being the outrageous teacher that he was, picked the most extreme answers to a lot of questions put to him, even to those of his closest followers, and this one is no different and no less true for being extreme. There are no limits to how much you should love your neighbor--every single person, that is.
The story of the good Samaritan, in particular, as a parable, hammers home the humbling truth that we are no better than any one person or group, and not only should one love a ‘despised’ person, and help him or her in whatever way one can, but, conversely, that the person that you most despise, may well be the one to help you when you need it most.

This is a universal parable (for instance, some of the basic tenets of Buddhism focus on putting others first, passive resistance to evil, suffering, compassion, etc. as do many other world religious systems), and, if read on a deeper level, causes us to examine ourselves and our own shortfalls as part of the human family. Do we all have biases and prejudices? Of course we do. Should those biases cloud our willingness to help someone in need? Well, if after reading Luke’s account (Lk. 10:29-37) of the parable of the good Samaritan you can even think of doing so, you either haven’t understood the parable, or you have much thicker skin than I do. Even if you think you know the story well, read it again, or even two or three times--it’s not a long passage. You might get something different from it each time. I know I did.