Today’s Gospel Story (Luke 10:25-37) is one of the most familiar stories in the Gospel, Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan. The majority report sees it as telling us about Jesus’ call to love our neighbor. These days many are finding ways to interpret the Parable that would justify how the government is treating many people, saying, in effect, that the Parable should not inconvenience us too much.
The minority report suggests some interesting and challenging, certainly unpopular, thoughts. We “process” the Gospel through the filter of whatever is going on in our life at the time, and we all have different life experiences. It all depends on two basic things: what the Spirit is trying to say to me, and what I am open to hearing. A long revered practice of “praying” the passage is to read it slowly, perhaps several times, and put myself in the place of the different persons in the story, see things from their perspective.
“There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus . . . because he wished to justify himself”. There’s nothing necessarily wrong about “testing” Jesus. It’s like “what are you saying to me in this situation”, whatever it may be, not because I may want to justify myself, whatever that may mean, but because I simply want to grow and be aware of the Spirit happening in my life. What is she saying to me?
Then there are the priest and the Levite, the clergy of their day, Maybe there are legal issues to support their non-involvement, maybe not. As I look at my past I can see some things I’ve done that reflect the priest and the Levite, when I put the law before people. A while back I had a supervisory chaplain whose favorite saying was “Don’t let Army Regulations get in the way of ministering”. I learned a lot from him.
Looking at the Story from the perspective of the victim. how did he feel about receiving care from a Samaritan? All Samaritans were seen as heathens by Israelites because they worshiped Yahweh in a different place. Each tradition condemned the other. A short while back in two separate but kind of related life changing and saving medical interventions in two separate hospitals and states, I received life saving medical care from persons who my church labels as “intrinsically disordered”, and my government says do not exist. In the process of receiving gratefully their wonderful care, we had some really good discussions. They taught me a lot. They certainly helped me on many levels, and I hope I helped them.
Then also there is the matter of a lesson I learned after I had made a bad decision in Viet Nam because I didn’t want to get involved. It involved a personnel issue, and I, at the time a young chaplain in over my head, chose not to get involved, because I thought personnel matters did not concern me, The result was a tragedy. When I reported to the Brigade Commander he told me, “Chaplain, anything that affects your people in any way concerns you, and don’t you forget it”. I haven’t. I just wonder what it means for me at this time in my life. In the past it has gotten me into some dicey situations, and usually, but not always, some good happened.
Jesus’ Parables are always about people. He uses his stories to jar us out of our usual ways of thinking, to change how we see life happening around us, and perhaps grow, if we are open to this possibility. People are important. They don’t exist to meet my expectations. They are as they are. Everyone is fighting some kind of a battle, has something difficult to deal with, that we don’t know about. When we don’t understand people or don’t like them for whatever reason, we fear them and set them up as “other”. We might even refer to them by pejorative names, making them less than ourselves, and easy to ignore or mistreat. Jesus shows us there are no “others”. We are all being created by a loving Abba. Every one of us. It seems my role is to be open to the Spirit and go where she leads me, kinda like being a chaplain again. I’m not sure how well I do this, or even what it means in particular situations. I’m peripherally involved in a few situations where people are hurting. I don’t know what my role is. Basically it is another personnel issue. Been there a few times.
The Story offers me an opportunity to fall back, adjust fire, re-engage. At this stage of my life how do I move in the direction of living as the Parable invites me to? Walter Brueggemann: “Like the ancient prophets, we are dispatched back to the good work entrusted to us. It is the work of peace-making. It is the work of truth-telling. It is the work of justice-doing. It is good work, but it requires our resolve to stay it”. Is there a good work entrusted to me here?
At this time of my life I am living among wonderful and good people, and truly it is a privilege for which I am most grateful. We are a small community and everyone knows everyone else. It is not without its rough spots. I have glimpses of the Gospel happening among us all the time, often without any religious reference or terminology, just good people trying to be good people. Any of us at any time can be any person in the Story. From time to time we are Samaritans for each other, and sometimes we are the injured man. I know I don’t want to be like the priest and Levite any more. Pope Leo sees faith as a journey we are all walking together. All of us are important, even necessary, for each other. We are aware of the next step on our journey, because this step is happening all around us. From time to time there are rough spots. Again I keep asking myself how involved I want to get. I don’t have the energy I used to. Should I say what I think, something I’m fairly used to doing. It is easier to get so wrapped up in the terrible things happening other places that I don’t have any energy to look at much closer to home, places where I have some involvement. How do I treat people with mercy? More questions than answers here. Just sayin . . .