In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus offers a picture of compassion and generosity, rather than self-protection.
For Sunday
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 10C
Collect
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
From Luke 10:25-37
“But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?””
Reflection
There are two parables that captivate the imagination unlike any others: the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son(s). In the case of either one, it is hard to truly comprehend the impact this one teaching lesson from Jesus has had on our world.
What prompts Jesus to tell this parable is not the inquisitive encouragement of his disciples. It comes from a snotty know-it-all who is trying to test Jesus’s wisdom. In essence, this is Jesus’s response to a bad faith question. Which makes it all the more remarkable.
I can’t speak for you, but I’m always trying to think about how my words connect with other people. I want to know if I’m having an impact on the lives of the people around me. Honestly, most of the time, I can’t even tell. But I try to better understand how to connect with people. Not just so that they will listen to what I have to say, but so that I might understand how to connect with them.
In that way, the Good Samaritan is all the more striking as a way of getting through to someone who didn’t want to be gotten through with.
justified
But I suspect an even more valuable bit for us might be found in that middle bit, right before Jesus tells the parable. The part where the lawyer is trying to “justify” himself.
This reminds me of something I learned years ago. During discernment for ordination, one of the tests we have to take, measuring our “fitness” measured how much we act on “self-preservation” and treat it as a negative. Because the more we seek to protect ourselves, the more we may reactively harm others.
It struck me at the time as extraordinarily novel given our culture and just how overwhelmingly normal self-preservation is. In government, business, law. It seems to quite literally be the greatest asset of anyone with power.
But to recognize the need to justify oneself, to prove oneself, is not an act of righteousness, but one of power preservation, reveals its dark side.
The antithesis of self-preservation, of justification, is the Good Samaritan. The one who doesn’t avoid being compromised, but enables the healing and saving of another.
And let it also be said that the Samaritan seeks out a partner in the innkeeper, who aids in healing and saving the life of the man abandoned. These merciful ones are the good neighbors.
Problem in the Text
This week’s video deals with that problem of when we don’t like our neighbors.