Thursday, May 21, 2015

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Luke 10:25-37

This parable is unique to Luke’s gospel, but it is one of the most famous of the little narratives attributed to Jesus. Luke frames the story with the question of the lawyer, who tests Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds by pointing the lawyer to the Torah, and the man reads out a combination of Deuteronomy 6:5 (part of the famous Shema, which the faithful should pray twice a day) and Leviticus 19:18. Note that these teachings about loving God and loving neighbour do not refer to emotional feelings, but to love as manifested in concrete actions. Jesus approves of what the lawyer has read, but the latter presses Jesus, asking who his neighbour is. Jesus thus tells the story of the Good Samaritan as an example of neighbourliness, which is underscored by the conclusion in verses 36 and 37. Here the lawyer affirms that the Samaritan, indeed, is the example of a true neighbour to the Jew who had suffered at the hands of bandits.

But if we take away this framing of the story, we might read it differently. It is well known that Samaritans and Jews were enemies in the first century. They had some things in common, but their religious practices had evolved differently. By the time of Jesus, there was bitter animosity between the two groups. Presumably Jesus is telling this story to a group of Jews. How would they respond to a tale of a man – a Jew – who had been beaten by robbers, left to die, ignored by not only a priest, but also a Levite, but then aided extravagantly by an enemy Samaritan? They might imagine themselves in the man’s place, being assisted by someone whom they despised. Yet the Samaritan is good. If Jesus told this odd little story, he certainly did not share it in order to gain popularity!

- Alicia Batten