Doing what is expected --Some thoughts on The Parable of the Good Samaritan (15th Sunday in ordinary Time)

 This Sunday we had one of the most famous passages in the Bible: The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This is one of those familiar stories that I can easily listen to with one ear tied behind my… well, you get the idea: because I’ve heard it so many times, I don’t always give it my full attention.  And I’ve heard so many homilies preached on it that I quite easily find myself drifting off during the preaching, wondering about breakfast, whether there is enough buttermilk to make biscuits… Do we have any flour? What about tortillas? We have those ripe avocados. Maybe I should make tacos… Which, of course, leads to trying to remember how old that bottle of salsa in the back of the refrigerator actually is.

 

BUT… that isn’t how I want to treat the Gospel. What I would rather do, is listen to it fully, every time… as if I were hearing it anew. Fresh.  But, I also want to know it. Have it planted in my heart.  And so I have begun reading the Sunday readings earlier in the week, in preparation for church, to kind of get myself ready; to let things start percolating inside me.  And something struck me about this familiar parable that I had not considered before. And that is the scholar who asks the question that gets everything started.  Trying to put Jesus to the test, he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t just answer. Instead, He asks the scholar, what does the law say? What do you think?  And the scholar answers that we are to love first God, and then “your neighbor as yourself” (cf. 10:27).  So far so good. But then, even after Jesus has affirmed his answer, the scholar, in an effort to justify himself, pushes the point. He wants to know just exactly who is my neighbor? And this is when Jesus tells the famous parable of the man beset by thieves who leave him to die beside the road and the 3 people who see this poor man. First there was a priest who saw the man and moved to the other side of the road –kept walking. And next a Levite passed by and saw the man and did the same.  Both have avoided contact with the victim who lies bleeding (possibly dying) beside the road.  Now, for me it is easy to see in these two men, a priest and a Levite (a descendent of Levi who assists in the temple), icons of some kind of hypocrisy. They are supposed to be holy men, Godly men, but instead we see them avoiding contact (even eye contact) with someone in need.  And usually, that is all the attention I give to these two sorry figures. But today, this parable opened my eyes in a new way—which is what a parable is supposed to do. First, I began to remember all the times I too avoided eye-contact with someone in need.  With the homeless man at the stoplight who was asking for money, or the needy neighbor who calls to ask for help with her sprinkler—sadly, I must admit there have been times I didn’t answer the phone because I knew it was her and I knew what she wanted, and I didn’t want to do it. Of course there were extenuating circumstances: I didn’t go out in the heat. I had just made myself a sandwich, or I just started watching a show or maybe I’d just poured myself a glass of milk and a plate of Oreos.

 

Anyway, I began wondering about these two, and their extenuating circumstances… What would make them behave this way? And I remembered there are some very strict cleanliness laws in the Torah about contact with the dead, and contact with blood. If the priest were on his way to temple, perhaps to serve at the altar and offer sacrifice, to religious intervene for all the people who had brought offerings, then stopping to help this victim on the road would make him unclean. He wouldn’t be able to fulfill his priestly duties –at least not until he’d gone through a ritual cleansing of his own, which could take seven days (cf. Lev. 19:11).  The same would go for the Levite as well. On top of that, there is a priestly warning in Leviticus 21:11 that says a priest should not profane himself by coming into the presence of a dead body, even for the sake of his mother or father. 

 

Read in this light, these might have seemed appropriate “extenuating circumstances” for the audience Jesus was speaking to, especially with this legal scholar standing there. And I have begun wondering whether those possible extenuating circumstances might be part of the lesson Jesus is teaching.  A lesson about what we are supposed to do, what the world expects of us, and about moving beyond that. Moving beyond the questions of what do I have to do to get my prize; to inherit the Kingdom? What is the minimum requirement to make sure I go to Heaven?  Teaching in parables, I think Jesus is calling us to see the very question of responsibility and reward in a new way.

 

And so we come to the “Good” Samaritan.  He doesn’t concern himself with what he is supposed to do, with what the world expects of him. He simply sees a fellow human in need and stops to offer help, to do what he can—even at his own inconvenience. 

 

That seems enough of a lesson right there. But, because I have my Bible open, I see another lesson that I have missed all along. My blindness keeps becoming more and more clear to me. Perhaps that is why I am writing a series of poems about a blind man… Anyway, back to the Gospel.  Here is one more thing to consider the next time you read this story:  Just before Jesus stops to teach this lesson, he and the disciples tried to pass through a Samaritan village, but the people there would not receive Him. They were upset that He was heading to Jerusalem (cf. 9:51-56). And so we have that context: the Samaritans who rejected Jesus and His disciples, and this Samaritan who has become an exemplar of hospitality and compassion. What does that mean to us? Why would Jesus tell this story in this context? And why make the “good” man a Samaritan?  So many wonderful rich questions. This passage just keeps opening up more deeply, more profoundly, with every reading.

 

I guess that is the real lesson. Don’t think you know the answers. Don’t think you know someone else’s story, their depths, their injuries and their dreams? Like these parables, each and every one of us is a mystery and a revelation. We are all walking contradictions, one moment selfish, the next a saint. One moment a fool, and the next –well, in my case, still a fool, but now a different kind of fool. 

 

I hope this makes some sense.  What I mean to say is this: every time someone asks for your help, they are offering you a blessing. They are sharing with you their God-given grace of “need.”  They are giving you the opportunity to be blessed by helping them, to receive the grace of laying down your life for another; setting aside your own wants and needs for the sake of another.

 

Perhaps the priest and the Levite miss out on that opportunity, because they were too focused on their responsibilities, on their “duties.”  Whereas the Samaritan is simply focused on the person right there in front of him, or next door, or knocking at his car window. He is simply being Christ for others by living in the moment, and receiving every opportunity to serve as a chance to find blessing.  We cannot do everything, but we can do something, instead of walking away.  And that is how the parable opened my eyes today.  How about you?  What is this famous Parable saying to you?

 

 

 

 

 

The Book of Judges: the oddness of scripture

“In those days there was no king in Israel

and everyone did as he saw fit.” –Judges 21:25

            This morning, I finally had a little time alone and just as I sat down to write, our kitten brought me a ball. She loves to play fetch, but most of the time she doesn’t bring the ball right to you. She drops it somewhere nearby and then watches to see if you will pick it up.  Today, the house to myself, I sit down at the counter with my Bible and my notebook and pen and suddenly there is a little gray and white cat, with her favorite green ball in her mouth, perched on the stool next to me.  She put the ball down on the stool and waited, watching me.

            And 15 minutes later I find myself still not reading or writing, but throwing the ball into the hall, again and again and watching her chase after it. Delighting in her oddness.  That is a gift, a blessing. And on a Sunday morning after church and biscuits and reading the funnies, what more should I hope for than to be given a few minutes of joy by one of God’s goofier creations. 

Ask for a sign, let it be high as the heaven or the depths below (cf. Is. 7:11).  

That’s what I did. And this is what I got. (And so much more…)

            What does that cute kitten have to do with the book of Judges? Well, I am still trying to figure that out. But, for now, let’s see where this blessing takes us.

One of the lessons I think I am learning from reading and contemplating scripture is this:  God is not out to get us!  God is not sitting on high judging our every move.  Like a good shepherd, He is always seeking us, trying to bring us always closer to Him, into the fold where we will be loved and cared for. 

How often do we ask: how do I know if this is God’s will for me? How do I know if this is the right choice?  Whether we are trying to discern a new vocation (or job), or where to go to college, or whether we should sell the house and move to the woods, many of us get tripped up by the fear that if we choose wrong God will hold it against us.  But that doesn’t seem to be the God we meet in scripture. Or the God I meet in life.   

             In the book of Judges we get a picture of Israel falling apart. They have followed Moses through the wilderness, followed Joshua into war to claim the Promised Land, and it seems that almost immediately after divvying it up amongst themselves they begin to collapse into selfishness and discord. Again and again in Judges we read: “The Israelites did what is evil in the eyes of the Lord” (cf. 2:13; 3:7; 4:1, etc).  This is a book about making bad choices.  But throughout this book –these often horrible choices-- God never abandons His people.  He keeps reaching out to them, sending help, lovingly guiding them, protecting them. This book is pretty short (only 21 chapters) and can easily be read in a couple of sittings.  There are several famous tales in it: Samson and Delilah being the most famous, but also the story of Gideon and the 300, Jotham’s allegory of the trees who want a king, and the tragic tale of Jephthah’s vow.  Yet regardless how heroic or painful the tales, over and over again the author returns to that same theme: Because everyone did as he saw fit, Israel began to do what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

            This theme comes to a horrifying climax toward the end of the book (ch. 17-21), in two tales involving Levites (the priestly tribe of Israel).  The first is a tale of priestly corruption; a Levite agrees to serve as priest before a household idol in the home of a man named Micah. Basically, he becomes a priest for hire. Someone asks him what he is doing there, and he responds:

Micah pays me a wage and I act as his priest. (18:4)

There are several clues that something is terribly wrong here. First, this a clearly not what God intended for the Levites.  They were set apart to be His priests. Second, way back in Exodus we saw what happened when God’s people made idols.  Third, in Joshua we saw the trouble that arises when people set up strange altars (cf. 22:11ff). Last, consider the name Micah. It means: one who is like God.  A man who is like God hires a Levite to be his personal priest.  This is definitely not what God intended for His priestly people.

A few verses later this Levite is kidnapped by warriors from the tribe of Dan (still in search of a better piece of Promised Land).  These warriors want the Levite to now be their priest.  And like Micah, they seem to imagine that having a priest (regardless of how they got him) will gain them God’s blessing. But after marching against “a peaceful and trusting people” (18:27) whom they put to the sword and destroy, they rebuild their new town, and immediately erect Micah’s stolen idol for their own use (and set their new priest to work before it).  This is what happens to God’s people when they do whatever they like.

            After this tale, there is a second vision of priestly corruption that reveals greater societal corruption. It is the tale of Gibeah (ch.19) and contains echoes of the story of Sodom. In this tale a Levite and his concubine stay the night in Gibeah (an Israelite town) and while there some of the men of the town come and demand that their host send the Levite out for them to rape and have their way with him.  The host, unwilling to surrender his guest, offers the crowd his virgin daughter (like Lot in Genesis 19:8), but the men refuse his offer. So, the Levite “took hold of his concubine and brought her out to them.” (Judges 19:25) She is abused and raped and left for dead.  Though the host’s offer and the Levite’s act are both monstrous, the results are even more fearful. In the morning, scripture tells us, as the Levite leaves the house he finds the woman on the doorstep. He tells her to get up, but she makes no answer.  Which our clue that she has been killed. And yet the priest gathers her up, puts her on his donkey and takes her home.  What we see in the priest, this Levite, is a man devoid of humanity.  He cares only for himself. He does whatever he wills and has no fear of doing any evil in the sight of God. What he does next is even more frightening and strange.  He takes a knife and cuts his concubine limb from limb into twelve pieces and sends the pieces “throughout the territory of Israel.” (19:29)

            I read this story and asked myself –why is it here? Why would anyone include this in their sacred text?  If this is God’s word, then what is God telling us through it? 

When we make ourselves into gods, we lose our humanity.  We lose our place. We lose our Promised Land. Yes, we can do whatever we like –but in the end we won’t like what we do.

Judges is a vision of Israel collapsing almost as soon as it enters into the Promised Land.  And that makes me wonder if the promised land isn’t a place –it’s a way of life. Is it possible that the promised land is wherever we are as long as we are walking with the Lord –when and where we make Him our King, that is the promised land!

Again, I ask--what does this have to do with the goofiness of a kitten?

I’m not sure… But it got me writing.  For a few minutes I wasn’t living in my own ego. I stepped outside myself and just played. Present to the gift of the moment, I was set free from “ambition’s derelict dreams.” For a few minutes I was laughing and unconcerned about anything; maybe for a few minutes I was just present to the promise and the presence. Maybe. But I was certainly present to the cat.