Hi First Presbyterian Church,
It’s time for our Mid-Week Meet-Up! I recently started a study of the parables of Jesus with my Wednesday Night Bible Study, and, when we started it, I didn’t assume I would enjoy it as much as I actually am! The genius, ethics, and heart of Jesus come through so clearly in his parables.
Last week, we studied the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is obviously a very widely known story. However, because it is so widely known and, therefore, sometimes adapted, the original meaning of the parable is sometimes lost. For example, people often give excuses for the priest and the Levite who simply walked by without helping the man who was beaten by the robbers and left for dead. Since they were religious clergy, it is often said that they must have been on their way to perform a religious duty and didn’t want to defile themselves by touching what appeared to be a corpse. However, they were heading “from Jerusalem to Jericho" (Luke 10:30), away from the Temple, demonstrating that they were not on their way to perform a religious rite. Not to mention the fact that Jewish thought at the time said just the opposite: “As long as there are no other people to look after the burial of a corpse, the duty is incumbent on the first Jew that passes by, without exception, to perform the burial” (from the Jerusalem Talmud Nazir 56a). What does this mean? It means here is the point Jesus is making: the priest and the Levite were obligated to try to save a life but failed to do so. The only one who fulfilled their moral and religious obligation was a Samaritan.
We shouldn't allow the fact that the hero of this story is a Samaritan to be lost on us. Samaritans and Jews hated each other and, honestly, their hatred of one another was sometimes “reasonably” founded. The Samaritans tried to stop the Jews from building their Temple in Jerusalem after they returned from exile (Nehemiah 4:1-8). They tried to kill each other, too (Nehemiah 6:2). Jews and Samaritans didn’t just find it difficult to tolerate each other. They hated each other! So for Jesus to tell a parable in which a Samaritan was the hero and more moral than the Jewish priest and Levite was not only scandalous – it was incendiary! Let me see if I can help you understand what I mean. If Jesus were telling this parable today to a group of Americans from the political far-right, the hero of the parable might have been a member of Antifa. If Jesus were telling this parable today to a group of Americans from the political far-left, the hero of the parable might have been a MAGA Republican. Can you feel the rhetorical effect of this parable now?
What do we make of a parable like this? I think it’s safe to assume that Jesus wants us to put away prejudice and refrain from making quick judgments of others. But I think it’s more than that, too. I think Jesus is trying to get us to humanize our enemies. I think Jesus is helping us to see that not only are we expected to love our enemies, but our enemies are capable of loving us, too. If it’s hard for you to see that, just remember that with faith and prayer… anything is possible.
Peace to you,
Pastor Aaron