July 7, 2010
Deuteronomy 30: 10-14 + Psalm 69 + Colossians 1: 15-20 + Luke 10: 25-37
The culture and the society that is obsessed with boundaries and boarders is in Gospel trouble, says this powerful parable we know only too well. The priest, the Levite, the Samaritan are all boundary bound. So conscious of, so careful of, so obsessed with boundaries, they have lost the most basic relationship, their neighbor. The fences and rules with which they have protected themselves have denied them the dignity with which they were created: “Good.” That blessing, that affirmation bestowed upon us at creation goes now to someone else:
someone least expected, someone outside the boundaries created by God’s own people!
In as much as parables always reveal something about God, we must listen carefully to this too familiar parable first for what it reveals about God, and then for clues about how we might begin to unwrap or restore
the image of God within us.
So first of all, it is God at work in this parable. It is God who is neither interested nor impressed by what race we were born to or who our parents are. God is impressed when God sees God’s own character demonstrated in the life of one of God’s own creatures.
This is what makes GOOD: being like God.
Only after examining what is revealed about God in a parable do we begin to question what it proposes to us. That is not difficult for those open to grace, conversion, and the continual challenge of the Gospel. So having confirmed from the parable that God is like this Samaritan, we are invited to take the next step and look at how much like or how unlike this Samaritan is our behavior and attitude. In other words: we might begin to wonder how “good” we are.
The “good” Samaritan is not “good” because he does a good deed. His goodness is not in stopping and picking up the victim. His goodness is found in the relationship he enters into. There is more than a good deed here – there is a commitment that is ongoing and lasting enough to be there when he returns. This is not just a passing act of charity – this is going further than just passing out a band aide The man is going to come back and make sure everything is ok.
He doesn’t just expect the inn keeper to do take care of things – in a sort-of “Somebody should do something!” attitude. He accepts responsibility and in doing so a relationship is born. At that point, he becomes “good.”
The question raised by the person who started this conversation with Jesus lingers on as the parable concludes; but it only lingers for those who make, set, and limit their lives, relationships, and responsibilities by boundaries, fences, and anything else that sets us enough apart from one another to even ask the question. For the serious follower of Christ, it is a silly trivial question that makes no sense.
That Samaritan was himself an outcast marginalized man living outside the mainstream of the Jewish society of that time.
Perhaps that is why he was so sensitive and responsive to someone else being avoided and ignored by those in the fast lane of life.
It seems to me that one who really seriously follows Christ
is often going to feel like an outcast or outsider,
marginalized and out of the mainstream
in this consuming materialistic culture in which we live.
That person will be the first to be sensitive and responsive
to the sufferings of others who are left behind, avoided, and pushed aside.
The parable speaks powerfully to us about God and goodness. It raises more serious questions than, “Who is neighbor?” It proposes what it might be like for us to live together without the fences and differences we devise so easily to keep others from getting what we have and absolve ourselves from the relationships and responsibilities to which we are called by God who wants us to be good.