Dcn Tom Lindell

GOOD MORNING!

In the Eucharistic Lectionary today, we are invited into the perennial question, “Who is my neighbor”? A lawyer initially tests Jesus regarding the law as it relates to eternal life. Jesus responds with a question asking him how understands the law. The lawyer recites his understanding of the law for which Jesus commends him. While the lawyer sought an answer to eternal life, Jesus instead responds, “…do this and you will live.”

The text reveals Luke’s antipathy toward lawyers. The self-righteous lawyer addresses Jesus as “teacher,” a worthy title but one that reveals he does not fully comprehend who Jesus is. For Luke, the better address to Jesus is “Lord” (Kyrios). His motive is to continue to justify himself by testing Jesus further by asking “who is my neighbor?” [In common parlance, “neighbor” might connote the person next door. However, to Hebrew speakers it is a person in intimate or legal relationship. For example, an alien would also be accepted into this category by Jews.] Jesus’ responds by telling a story that will challenge the self-righteous lawyer, a story to which we are all too familiar—or are we?

Amy-Jill Levine does a detailed exegesis of the nuances of the story.[1] The setting is the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a road between the cities with recognized perils by bandits. An injured man lies in a ditch and is unattended. The priest and the Levite pass by but do not help, whereby Christian commentators are wont to invoke the “purity code” that prohibits either of them from possibly being contaminated by a dead person. Levine, in examining the Talmud and Mishna, reveals that the law obligated both to save the life of the injured man; they both failed.

Instead, it befell to a third individual who followed the law to stop and administer aid and deliver him to an inn with instructions to attend to the man’s needs, for which he would pay any additional expenses. The shock, for those who heard Jesus tell the story, was that the person who aided the injured man was a Samaritan.

Levine provides a lengthy description of the historical significance of the conflict between the Davidic, Judean Jews and their northern counterparts, Israel, or the Samaritans, who viewed themselves as descendants of Joseph. Their separate ideology developed over geographical separation and separate charismatic leadership. In the 4th century, BCE, they built their own temple on Mt Gerizim. That enmity continues to this day, despite both adhering to the law. The Gospel stories that we have come to know since our youth therefore contain veiled stereotypes that paint the Jews in a negative light and depict the outcast as a hero.

Jewish listeners would have balked at the notion of receiving aid from a Samaritan. To Jesus’ Jewish audience the idea of a “good Samaritan” would be anathema. The Samaritan’s compassionate action reveals his full attention to the law, loving God, and loving neighbor. Luke’s parable reveals negative stereotypes of the Jews, coupled with the shocking revelation that a cultural outcast is fully capable of administering loving compassion. It is refreshing to read an interpretation from a knowledgeable Jewish New Testament scholar who has a deep perspective of the context of the culture of antiquity.

—Dcn Tom

[1] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, HarperCollins, NY, 2014, pp. 71-106.