Sunday July 11th 2010

Pentecost 7, July 11 2010
Sam Held

Earlier this week I was driving to work listening to one of the less serious radio shows, and they had a phone-in going on asking people about some of the strange things their parents used to say to them when they were children. The things people rang in with ranged from the fondly familiar, through the bizarre ending up with the frankly disturbing.
I was quite amused to hear that someone would take the trouble to tell an inquisitive child that the object of their curiosity was a wigwom for a goose’s bridle rather than tell her what it is: and there was a chilling familiarity about stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!
The ones that most puzzle me are the surreal ones, like you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face before too long my lad.

As a small boy I liked to hang around my Granny’s kitchen trying to be helpful, unfortunately I was a clumsy child and disaster often followed. My pleas of good intentions only invited the response that the road to hell is paved with them.

This is one of those sayings we’ve all heard, and not just in our childhood, and yet do we ever stop to question it? Assuming for a moment there is an actual tangible place called Hell, is it reasonable to assume there is a distinct road that leads there? Are we, each and every one of us, on some kind of personal trajectory, heavenwards or hell-bound? Is it even reasonable to ask this question? As Anglicans we believe in the concept of justification by faith, by faith alone, not by our deeds and good works, yet we openly strive to live righteously, to be good Christians. It is right that we should, because that is what is asked of us in the scriptures, but in its own right is not a fast-track visa for eternal life.

The lawyer in Luke’s gospel struggles to come to grips with the difference between observing religious law and meeting the (almost) impossible demands of possibly the greatest commandment, or at least the last bit that feels impossible: that annoying little postscript and your neighbour as yourself.

As surely one of the best known parables, the story of the Good Samaritan is often told as a series of contrasts: Jesus the patient teacher and the wily lawyer who tries to catch him out, the self-righteous priest and Levite and the selfless Samaritan. Good and bad, light and dark, the ever-present shadow side of our humanity only a brief decision away. Stop and help, walk away – stop and help, walk away …
The story works well interpreted this way, and the term ‘Good Samaritan’ has become established in our language to refer to an unlikely friend in need. Equally to ‘walk by on the other side’ occurs in general English meaning to do nothing when presented with a case of obvious need.

Life is seldom as clear cut as the ‘traditional’ take on this parable would have us believe though, and perhaps there aren’t any baddies (except of course the bandits - even the most liberal interpreter would class their actions as a bit naughty).
Take the lawyer, often seen as trying to trip Jesus up with cunning questions, but does Luke’s text reflect this? He shows respect, calling Jesus ‘teacher’, and answers his question diligently, citing Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Jesus shows no irritation in his response, in fact he approves of it and the exchange looks more like a healthy debate. The gospel text says that seeking to justify himself the lawyer asks his next question, the one about who is my neighbour? , and this has been taken to be a trick question. What centuries of identifying the Jews of Jesus’ times as his persecutors overlooks, is that in a faith based on Torah observance, the lawyer was asking for an entirely reasonable clarification, thus justifying his role as a ‘legal’ export on the Law and his place in the scheme of things.
Jesus uses a story to make his point to the lawyer but doesn’t give him the unequivocal definition he seeks; instead he leaves him with a challenge, the same one we face today who is my neighbour?

The priest and the Levite usuallyget a pretty bad press out of this story usually, but in the context of their circumstances what did they do to earn it? The parable suggests they were going down from Jerusalem which means they would have just finished a duty stint at the Temple, they would have been doing what they had trained and studied to do and were probably feeling pretty good, and pretty holy. Imagine what must have gone through the priest’s mind when he saw the man lying at the side of the road. “If I so much as touch that man I will be defiled, become unclean, I will have to undergo long and expensive procedures, make sacrifices to become purified, I will be severely criticised by my peers and family. The Torah requires a man in my position always to be pure - therefore if I do not touch him, then I am following the Law”.
That may have helped him at the time, but he could have had a bit of trouble living with it later.
As for the Levite, it’s feasible that he saw the priest stop momentarily then carry on, as the road descends steeply with many bends and one could often see travellers a long way ahead of you. When he saw why the priest had stopped, he too would have worried about becoming unclean and its implications, and might have taken the priest’s actions as a lead, permission if you like, to do the same.
Bear in mind that both these men have acted righteously in terms of the law of the Jews, and kept themselves pure.
Bear in mind also, that though the Samaritans and the Israelites were bitter enemies, they worshipped the same God and observed the same laws. So when this Samaritan traveller stopped and helped the wounded victim, he knowingly risked transgressing religious laws. He also, arguably, placed himself in great physical danger because if any passing Israelites had chanced upon a Samaritan bent over the body of one of their own they would have been likely to attack first and ask questions later.

If we take a ‘no fault’ look at all the players in the parable what is Jesus telling the lawyer when he asks him to identify who the neighbour was to the injured man in the story? Even at this point in his understanding the lawyer cannot bring himself to say the word ‘Samaritan’ – such is the depth of division – he says the one who showed him mercy. The priest and Levite were unable to allow themselves to help because of the depth of division between pure and unclean, between righteous observance of the Law and transgression.
The unspoken point, but one I believe that the lawyer would have understood, is that from the point of view of the victim the internal conflict between the joy and relief of rescue, and the horror of realising that the rescuer is one of the hated Samaritans cannot be underestimated. Without doing so explicitly, Jesus has returned the question who is my neighbour to the questioner, and returned it as a challenge Go and do likewise!
The lawyer learns how to inherit eternal life, but unfortunately not in a form that can translate into a code of behaviour, not in a form that is palatable even.

Can we actually say who our neighbour is? Is it perhaps anyone we encounter in need for whom it is in our gift to do something? Is it someone who does something to meet our needs regardless of who they are? - the unsolicited charity of a complete stranger?
These are the implicit questions in the story of the Good Samaritan, and they underpin the paradox of the (almost) impossible commandment to love your neighbour as yourself, which is that you cannot define who your neighbour is, because in doing so you will, by default exclude people, and among those you exclude there may be someone who could, like the Samaritan be a neighbour to you.

When one reaches a paradox it is difficult to reach a neat conclusion, and I do not intend to try. Some challenges remain just that – things we can aspire to, work hard to achieve but never quite attain and at best get a little wiser as we practice.
As a point for reflection, as we all share the ministry of the baptised, it would be nice to think we were a little ahead of the game in the loving our neighbour stakes wouldn’t it?
I was recently at a training presentation by an outreach worker from Auckland who worked on the streets supporting sex-workers at the lowest end of the ‘market’. At the end when time came for questions, a friend and colleague, a deeply committed, generous-hearted and loving Christian asked What can we, as Christians, do for these people? How many redundant words do you think are in that question?