This weeks lectionary gospel reading sets forth the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Although it is familiar, more takes place than meets the eye. John Pilch, a scholar of Middle Eastern culture, provides a penetrating analysis. The parable opens with these words: Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. Teacher, he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 10.25; NRSV). As Pilch observes, the lawyer was not really seeking information; he was challenging Jesus honor.
When Jesus asked the lawyer what the law says, he quoted the commandment to love God and ones neighbor. Jesus told him he had answered correctly; to do these things and he would live. But the lawyer then asked, And who is my neighbor? The lawyer did not ask how he might more fully love God and his neighbor. He wanted to know the minimum requirement for gaining eternal life, for getting into heaven.
As Pilch points out, the parable has seven scenes each of which is fraught with meaning. First, the robbers strip their victim and leave him half dead. No one can identify his ethnicity from his clothing or his speech. Therefore, helping is risky.
Second, the priest comes by riding on his donkey; the donkey is a sign of social status. If the injured man were a gentile, and the priest rendered aid, he would have touched something or someone unclean. This would require the priest return to Jerusalem to undergo a ritual purification process.
Third, the Levite may have seen the priest pass by. If the priest did not render aid, why should he? In this circumstance, rendering aid would have amounted to shaming and insulting the priest. If the victim were a Samaritan, on the contemporary view, the Levite would have been rendering aid to someone whom God detests (Sirach 50;25-26). Its best to simply pass by.
Fourth, Jesus now has the Samaritan appear. The listeners would have expected a Jewish layperson, not someone the Jewish people despised. Yet it is precisely the Samaritan who was deeply moved with compassion, who was stirred to action.
Fifth, the Samaritan treats the injured mans wounds with oil and wine (the alcohol would have killed germs and helped to prevent infection) then he bandages the wounds. Upon regaining consciousness, the injured man, if Jewish, may hate the Samaritan for making him impure. As Pilch notes, the Samaritan is damned if he does and damned if he doesnt.
Sixth, the Samaritan then places the injured man on his own animal (most likely a donkey) and takes him to an inn where he continues to care for him. The priest could have done this as he was also riding a donkey.
Last, the Samaritan promises the innkeeper he will cover any additional expenses on his return. The Samaritan was exposing himself to considerable risk: if the man should die, his family may seek revenge; if he should live, the waking man may be intensely angry when he discovers the Samaritan has rendered him impure.
Having set forth the parable, Jesus then asked the lawyer, Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? He replied, The one who showed him mercy. Jesus then told him, Go and do likewise. The lawyer ended up being the one to suffer shame. He wanted to do the minimum required only to now realize he was called to be a neighbor to anyone he met who was in need.
Pilch concludes, Too often this parable has been read as a pleasant moral lesson of kindness and neighborliness. Fleshing out all the characters in their Mediterranean cultural characteristics gives the parable a fresh look.
A hated outsider extends compassionate love to his enemy. What a masterful attack on communal prejudice!
Our neighbor includes the stranger we hate, even all those illegal aliens! The parable serves to challenge our understanding of prejudice and kindness. Given Alligator Alcatraz, many will find the parable and this article offensive. There he goes again! Mixing politics and religion! Nonetheless, it is the gospel truth.
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