What does it mean to be a Good Samaritan? Silly question; of course, everyone knows. A Good Samaritan is someone who helps a complete stranger. Someone comes up to Jesus and asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" What must I do, what must we do, to live in God's kingdom, right here, right now? What must we do to live in God's kingdom? What must we do to have joy, enlightenment, Nirvana?
The answer is well known. Love God, and love your neighbor. The questioner asks, "Who is my neighbor?" The devil's in the details; you know, what exactly does it mean to love 'neighbor'? Who is the neighbor? Is the neighbor I'm supposed to love just the people on my street? Or perhaps those in my village? The most magnanimous answer in Jesus' day would be that any fellow Jew is your neighbor.
In response to this question, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. When I hear that story, Jesus is telling me that it's not just people like us, but anybody in need, who is the neighbor. If I want to experience the kingdom of heaven, then I need to serve anybody in need. In my circle of charity, who should be the objects of my charity? Anybody in need, which sort of adds to my guilt whenever I pass someone in need and I don't do anything about it. Guilt says that there are so many people in need, and I can't help all of them, so I won't be able to get into heaven, and it gets all really confused in my head.
How I hear this story is, that if I want to enter the kingdom of heaven, then I need to increase my circle of 'neighbor,' of who I care for, of those who are the objects of my charity. But, that's not what this parable is about.
I think the parable is teaching us something that's both easier and far more difficult. I want to take a few moments to talk about this parable. The first thing that's important to realize, and many people already know, is that Jews and Samaritans hated each other. Like Israelis and Palestinians today, it was a deep hatred that goes back a long ways. The fact that Jesus used a Samaritan as the hero in this parable highlighted the shock that 'neighbor' isn't just people in our town, or in our country. 'Neighbor' includes even Samaritans, even Arabs, even Islamic fundamentalists, even members of Al Qaeda, even Slavic evangelicals, even Russian evangelicals in our community. 'Neighbor' includes all of that.
I think that Jesus is saying that I need to love those people, and include them in my circle of 'neighbor.' But, if that was Jesus’ point, then he is telling the parable all wrong. If that was Jesus' point, this is how he should've told the parable:
A Samaritan was walking down the road, and he got beat up. Then you pick whoever is an icon in our society, you know, a Levite, a priest, a congressman, someone who should care, but is just so uncaring. And the priest goes by, and says, "Oh, no way!" and walks on. A Levite comes by and sees the Samaritan, and says, "Oh, no way!" and keeps on going.
Then someone like you, or me, walks by and sees the Samaritan, and picks the Samaritan up, dresses the wounds, bandages them, takes him to a hotel, pays for the hotel, tells the concierge to do whatever's necessary for the man, and I'll return tomorrow and pay you even more. This magnanimous outpouring of love, done for the Samaritan. That's how the parable should have been told, if the point of the parable was that we need to care even for the Samaritan, even for the Islamic fundamentalists or whatever. Does that make sense? That's how the parable should have been told.
However, Jesus tells the parable like this: There was someone driving home after church. On their way home just after the person got on the freeway, this person had a blowout in the right front tire, lost control of their car, ran into the guardrail. The front of the car was smashed up, the airbags deployed. This person was pretty banged up. It was a one car accident, off on the side of the road; traffic wasn't impeded, so everyone kept just driving by.
A Bishop was driving on the freeway, saw the accident, spoke a blessing and continued on his way. An off-duty police officer was driving down the freeway, saw the accident, and said, "There'll be a CHP officer along here soon," and kept going.
This next part is where you get to fill in the blank. You get to fill in the blank with whoever your enemy is. Whoever it is that you love to hate, is the next character in the story. I'm going to fill in the blank with something that isn't true for me; I'm not going to be honest about who it is I love to hate, but I'm just going to use a stereotypical example.
So, here in my stereotypical example, imagine a huge guy, covered head to toe with tattoos, wearing full leathers, riding a big Harley, glasspacks blasting, backfiring his way down the road. Now, for your own parable, you might use President Bush, or Hillary Clinton -- we want to be equal-opportunity enemy-identifiers here. Or, let's say, Slavic evangelicals or Islamic fundamentalists or members of Al Qaeda or liberal Episcopalians or John Spong or whoever it is you want to be the person that you would just hate to be with. Who would you least want at a dinner party? That's the person who is the next character in this parable.
This huge, tattooed Harley-riding guy sees the accident and pulls over, looks in the car. He sees the driver all banged up, runs to his bike, opens a saddlebag, pulls out a first-aid kit. He runs back to the car, gently cleans the wounds, dresses the wounds, puts bacitracin on them. He carries this person like a doll, puts them on the back of his Harley, drives to the emergency room -- this was in a time before cell phones, of course. He drives to the emergency room, effortlessly carries this person into the ER, lays them down on a bed, stays there during treatment. He helps this person call the police, call the insurance agent, then gets back on his Harley, goes back and makes sure the tow truck driver treats the damaged car just right, follows the car back to the garage and makes sure everything is okay.
Now, when you hear that story, who is it in the story that you identify with? Who is it that you are invited to be in that story? It's not the person who does the helping; you've got this image in your head of that person being the person you don't want to be. You are not a 300 pound biker on a Harley.
The person to identify with is the one who is wounded, the one who was driving home from church. That is how Jesus tells the story. A man was walking from Jerusalem, the capital of the Jews, to Jericho. It's a road, a journey, that probably everyone in Jesus' audience had walked themselves. His audience certainly would never have identified themselves with the Samaritan, because, well, he was a Samaritan.
The parable is like a puzzle; it's not encouraging us to increase the circle of our charity, to increase the number of people who are the objects of our charity. Think about it -- if someone is the object of your charity, they are still an object. They are still a stranger.
What would it be like if you were the victim? What would it be like if you were the one who was in need, who was wounded, who was broken? 'Neighbor' is this other who is coming to serve you.
In the kingdom of heaven, there are no objects, there are no strangers. There are only neighbors, there are only companions. It's a kingdom of mutual dependence; we are the wounded ones, we are the needy ones. How do you enter the kingdom of heaven? You realize that you need the other. It's not that you have to help one more person; that you have to fit one more person into your circle of charity. You have to realize that you are the one who is broken, and you have to be willing to accept the love, the neighborliness, of the other.
We are not called to be Good Samaritans. We are called to be good wounded ones. That is how you enter the kingdom of heaven. It's that simple, and it's that hard. Amen.