Ship of Fools: The one who has compassion

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Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:25-37&version=NIV

The Story of the Good Samaritan

Couple of very things that strike me about this story

The term esplagnisthe (“he had compassion”) occurs three times in all of Luke; in the other two instances, only God’s agent, Jesus (Luke 7:13) and a figure for God, the father of the Prodigal (Luke 15:20) show compassion. In other words, “showing compassion” in the Lukan narrative is a divine prerogative and a divine action. The Good Samaritan, when he shows compassion on the man in the ditch, is functioning figuratively as God’s agent.

The other minor point that I have always thought intriguing is when Jesus asks the lawyer about who acted as the neighbor, the lawyer could not even bring himself to saying it was the Samaritan. He fudges, saying it the one who showed mercy.

What a gold mine with this story!

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Indeed it is! When I saw it was the lectionary reading for Sunday I thought Oh no, what can I get it of this?

I've decided to ignore the usual 'Let's all be like the Good Samaritan and help people who are different to us' and go with the 'Jesus is the GS and you are the person in need of help.'

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

I couldn't really resist the modern world. A world where the people of one nation are increasingly dividing the world into "us" and "them", where "them" is usually people from other nations. The immigrants who are taking "our jobs", scrounging from "our taxes", using "our health service" etc. The parallel with the Samaritans, the despised foreigners, is too strong to ignore.

Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on :

If the bottom of the preaching barrel were all scraped out, and I were asked to preach on the GS, those who stayed awake would get something like this:

Why is the parable not about the “Good Jew who helps a Samaritan”?

This parable does teach us that God wants us to help even people we don't like. But that is a side to the meat, that the long awaited forgiveness of the Jewish nation is being announced. And that those eligible for the forgiveness now includes anyone outside the Jewish Covenant who is prepared to do what's right, and excludes some of those firmly in the old style Jewish Covenant.

This now seems normal to us, but at the time it was massive, stunning and very, very challenging. The lawyer's question was a very standard one for the day, and meant basically 'Who is in the Covenant when God's Kingdom arrives'? 'Where is the Jewish boundary line?' (The lawyer would have assumed he was in, and wanted to know who was out.)

“Love your neighbour as yourself” the definition of neighbour for this purpose was taken to be those inside the Jewish boundary line.

So to say that a kindly Samaritan was in, and a Levite and a priest were out, was to rewrite centuries of thinking, challenge national understanding and even threaten the Temple and Torah.

That sort of thing gets someone killed.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I've decided to ignore the usual 'Let's all be like the Good Samaritan and help people who are different to us' and go with the 'Jesus is the GS and you are the person in need of help.'

Wasn't that something along the lines of Augustine's interpretation—the man going down from Jerusalem=Adam/mankind, the GS=Jesus, and the inn=the church?

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
If the bottom of the preaching barrel were all scraped out, and I were asked to preach on the GS, those who stayed awake would get something like this:

Why is the parable not about the “Good Jew who helps a Samaritan”?

This parable does teach us that God wants us to help even people we don't like. But that is a side to the meat, that the long awaited forgiveness of the Jewish nation is being announced. And that those eligible for the forgiveness now includes anyone outside the Jewish Covenant who is prepared to do what's right, and excludes some of those firmly in the old style Jewish Covenant.

This now seems normal to us, but at the time it was massive, stunning and very, very challenging. The lawyer's question was a very standard one for the day, and meant basically 'Who is in the Covenant when God's Kingdom arrives'? 'Where is the Jewish boundary line?' (The lawyer would have assumed he was in, and wanted to know who was out.)

“Love your neighbour as yourself” the definition of neighbour for this purpose was taken to be those inside the Jewish boundary line.

So to say that a kindly Samaritan was in, and a Levite and a priest were out, was to rewrite centuries of thinking, challenge national understanding and even threaten the Temple and Torah.

That sort of thing gets someone killed.

That pinged with me, too-- if the point was to teach folk how to be a good neighbor, why not a Jewish person showing hospitality to an outsider?

I think your take is spot on.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I've decided to ignore the usual 'Let's all be like the Good Samaritan and help people who are different to us' and go with the 'Jesus is the GS and you are the person in need of help.'
Wasn't that something along the lines of Augustine's interpretation—the man going down from Jerusalem=Adam/mankind, the GS=Jesus, and the inn=the church?

Yes, I believe it's so. I wouldn't normally go down the allegorical line too much but it seemed a good way to look at the text.

Like the GS, Jesus,

- has compassion on us
- comes to us
- binds up our wounds
- bears our burdens
- paid for our health
- enlists the help of others
- will return to complete the transaction.

Of course, there is another side to this - it's the stranger who is the helper. The parable is not about us helping the stranger who is different to us. If it were, the story would have been told to a Samaritan, telling him that they must help those Jews who don't like us.

Is there a case for saying that the parable of the GS can also be one of allowing the stranger to help us? Had the half-dead Jew been more aware of his helper would he have allowed a Samaritan to help?

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Alan Cresswell

quote:
I couldn't really resist the modern world. A world where the people of one nation are increasingly dividing the world into "us" and "them", where "them" is usually people from other nations. The immigrants who are taking "our jobs", scrounging from "our taxes", using "our health service" etc. The parallel with the Samaritans, the despised foreigners, is too strong to ignore.

You might have further pressed your point by highlighting the crucial role which foreigners play in the British Health Service and as Carers in other contexts. Samaritans, indeed!

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

My current draft certainly includes the observation that it's the Samaritan, the foreigner, who helps the man in need rather than him being the man in need. That does rather lend itself to the observation of the proportion of NHS staff, and other carers, from outwith the UK. I've a few days to finish polishing the sermon, but I don't want to push the political angle too much.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

So many things about this story.

Orlando: The one bouncer at the Pulse club was Muslim and he was credited with saving about 60 people from the shooter putting his own life at risk.

And that is not saying anything about the Muslim doctors and nurses who worked some very long hours to save those who were shot.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

I was thinking about this parable as I remember the modern analogies often offered:
"What if a KKK guy was helped by an African American? What if a fundamentalist was helped by a LGBT activist?"

This analogies usually in my experience end with "Isn't it nice to help your enemy?" But tonight, I'm wondering if the point of the parable is not to stop there. The point of the story is that the Jewish lawyer is to change his opinion of the Samaritan, to listen anew, and to be willing to shift his perspective if necessary. I don't think Jesus meant to say in this parable that we are to be neutral on issues, because "all people are wonderful and equally right." I think we are however, meant to re-evaluate our assumptions about others, and we may have to change our perspective if it is rooted in mistrust or hatred of the other.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

It's interesting to me that this is one of Jesus' parables that has filtered down into non-religious, popular culture. Almost everyone knows the phrase "Good Samaritan," but the impact of the story is so watered-down in the broader culture that almost anytime you hear it, you could replace "Good Samaritan" with "helpful person," and all most (non-religious, and probably many religious) people take from the story is a general sense that "it's good to help people."

Without the story set in its Biblical context, you don't get the added challenge of offering help to the enemy, the one who is different from you, which is the whole point of the helper being a Samaritan. And even beyond that, as people on this thread have pointed out, it's not the (comparatively) easy lesson of "Be nice to the person your community identifies as an outcast," but "Help to the one who has identified YOU as an outcast; risk your own life to save your oppressor."

That's an incredibly deep and challenging message, far beyond the generic "be helpful" message that most people seems to associate with the phrase "good Samaritan."

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

It may also speak to the human tendency to demonize the Other. Ooh, we never eat with Samaritans, they're just not One of Us.
I read an article yesterday (which of course I now cannot find) -- a survey which was done by some University in the early 20th century, about white people's attitudes towards black people. Questions like, "Do all black men want to rape white women?" and "Are all black people idle and unwilling to work?" A startling percentage, well over 50%, of white people polled believed these things were true. The university was horrified, and started a club, for black and white people to meet and get to know each other. The idea being that if you got to know them as human beings, you could shed some of these more wacky prejudices.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

I preached on this three years ago when there was a story in the news about an Episcopal priest in Aberdeen who had opened his church to house the Friday overspill from the mosque next door. There was (predictably) quite a lot of fuss about this in Christian circles. But as the priest pointed out, it was simple hospitality - he had seen Muslim men praying outside in the snow, while he had a warm church they could use. What else could he do?

So I think there is another level to the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus is asking us to do a kind of thought experiment - to make an imaginative leap, if you will. Who is your neighbour? Well, imagine that you have been beaten up and left for dead. Imagine that a Samaritan stops to help you. Has that Samaritan been a good neighbour? Has that Samaritan done a good thing?

Or in terms of the story above, if people question your neighbourliness to the mosque next door: try this. Imagine that your church has burned down. Imagine that the mosque next door offers for you to use their space on Sundays while your church is being rebuilt. Would this be a good and neighbourly thing for them to do?

Yes? Well, now you know what to do too.

Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :

A similar incident happened in a city where I lived. The largest Lutheran church in town had to be closed for emergency repairs, which took a number of months. A nearby (much smaller) Lutheran church offered to share their space, which worked pretty well. And then, the large (Reform) synagogue just down the street phoned and said, in effect, 'You know, we don't use our space on Sundays, you are more than welcome to it.' Which began a whole new level of cooperation and interaction between the two congregations.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed it is! When I saw it was the lectionary reading for Sunday I thought Oh no, what can I get it of this?

I've decided to ignore the usual 'Let's all be like the Good Samaritan and help people who are different to us' and go with the 'Jesus is the GS and you are the person in need of help.'

Does your translation, then, not conclude with the words "Go thou and do likewise"?

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

Remember Godspell? When the cast did the Good Samaritan story, the Samaritan was depicted as a fall down drunk.

I remember when I first saw Godspell, everyone kind of laughed uncomfortably when they realized the implication.

My modern version (a work in process)

A certain person was traveling on the interstate between Los Angles to San Diego.

All of the sudden a car cut across in front of him sideswiping him (could be a her too). The car careened into the ditch pinning the traveler.

Meanwhile many cars passed the accident scene, but no one stopped.

One of the cars that passed by was driven by an Episcopalian, but she drove by without so much as a sideways glance, she had an appointment she had to make.

Another car that passed by belonged to a Baptist, but she was afraid to get involved.

Shortly thereafter, a car slowed and pulled to the side of the road. This driver quickly worked his way down into the ditch to the wrecked car where he discovered the traveler was pinned and going into shock.

The responder (as in first responder) immediately started giving first aid. The responder was able to free the trapped traveler and got him to the top of the road where he was able to call emergency.

The first responder stayed with the traveler until professional respondors were able to take over.

The first responder was a Muslim who took the pillar to show compassion seriously.

I know it does not pack nearly the same punch as the original.

I had the experience of being at the side of the road as it were. One winter day I decided to take my dog out into the country. It was snowing pretty heavily--you might say it was blizzard like conditions.

We were about a mile away from the road when I slipped and fell on my right ankle, breaking it in five places.

I could not walk on the ankle at all. I realized the only way I was going to survive was try to crawl back to the main road on my hands and knees.

It was a very cold and wet crawl back to the road. Hypothermia was setting in, but my dog kept me going, nudging me when I would pause ready to give up.

Finally about a quarter mile to the road, a car stopped on the side of the road. The people in the car had stopped to let their dog relieve himself.

My dog raced to them. When they saw my dog they began back tracking his tracks when they found me.

They got me to the hospital and stayed with my dog until my wife and son were able to retrieve him at the hospital

When I got to the hospital, my body temperature was hovering around 90 so the first thing they had to do was raise my temperature to stabilize me.

Since this was a small hospital, they had to call in an orthopedic surgeon--unfortunately he was the doctor of a college basketball team and it was a game night. Consequently, he could not get to me until after the game. I think I was finally wheeled into the OR at 11 PM. I am not sure how long he worked on me, but I know it was a very long night for him.

I lost contact with the people who were the first responders for me. I still am in contact with the orthopedic surgeon. He will be replacing my knees eventually. I have other, more pressing surgery to deal with first.

BTW, my dog was awarded the Whitman County Red Cross Rescue dog of the Year. He got a plaque and a flag that was actually flown over the nation's capital plus a room at the local Holiday Inn. We took advantage of the room shortly thereafter. The flag we donated to a home for veterans. We still have the plaque.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed it is! When I saw it was the lectionary reading for Sunday I thought Oh no, what can I get it of this?

I've decided to ignore the usual 'Let's all be like the Good Samaritan and help people who are different to us' and go with the 'Jesus is the GS and you are the person in need of help.'
Does your translation, then, not conclude with the words "Go thou and do likewise"?

Having written my sermon, the first half does include reiterate the familiar meaning but the second meaning, where the inn is the place of refuge for the rescued, includes the thought that we must be like the Good Samaritan - do 'likewise' - and carry on his care of those who need our help, at his behest.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

In my case "go and do likewise" is that a) everyone is our neighbour and there is no boundary between "us" and "them" when it comes to loving our neighbour, and b) that loving is about relationship - so practical demonstration of love (as shown by the Good Samaritan) includes both giving and receiving aid, relationships by definition are not uni-directional.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In my case "go and do likewise" is that a) everyone is our neighbour and there is no boundary between "us" and "them" when it comes to loving our neighbour, and b) that loving is about relationship - so practical demonstration of love (as shown by the Good Samaritan) includes both giving and receiving aid, relationships by definition are not uni-directional.

Is this not eisegesis? There is no "relationship" in the story, and the action is, in fact, uni-directional.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In my case "go and do likewise" is that a) everyone is our neighbour and there is no boundary between "us" and "them" when it comes to loving our neighbour, and b) that loving is about relationship - so practical demonstration of love (as shown by the Good Samaritan) includes both giving and receiving aid, relationships by definition are not uni-directional.
Is this not eisegesis? There is no "relationship" in the story, and the action is, in fact, uni-directional.

But, the story is in answer to the question "who is my neighbour?", ie: "who am I supposed to love?". Is not love, in it's fullest expression, about relationship? A neighbour is not a stranger; a neighbour is a friend, someone we see day after day, someone we know. The very nature of neighbourliness introduces the relationship to the story.

Also, is it unreasonable in preaching on the passage to also ask the question "how am I supposed to love?". The story shows uni-directional love in action, the man by the road has no means to reciprocate. That doesn't mean that love should not be reciprocal, that those who receive also give. Is not part of loving someone to not only give to them but also to receive from them?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, the story is in answer to the question "who is my neighbour?", ie: "who am I supposed to love?". Is not love, in it's fullest expression, about relationship?

That seems a very modern spin. I doubt very much a first century Palestinian Jew would say anything at all like that. And I'm not at all sure that "neighbour" in the command "Love they neighbour as thyself" has that connotation. You are reading it in.

I'd like our Greek and Hebrew scholars to weigh in. What is "neighbor" here? Is there such a word as "neighbourliness" in Greek or Hebrew that builds on such a word and means the kind of gemütlich relationship Alan is suggesting?

quote:
Also, is it unreasonable in preaching on the passage to also ask the question "how am I supposed to love?". The story shows uni-directional love in action, the man by the road has no means to reciprocate. That doesn't mean that love should not be reciprocal, that those who receive also give. Is not part of loving someone to not only give to them but also to receive from them?

It's not that love can't be reciprocal. It's that you're reading that into the text; there's nothing there about it. There's not a bit of reciprocity there. Indeed you might argue that part of what makes the Samaritan's actions noble is precisely that they are not returned, and he doesn't seem to expect them to be.

______
*gemütlich = cozy, comfortable, homey, etc.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Just as God loves us with no expectation of any return, let alone an adequate one.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Just as God loves us with no expectation of any return, let alone an adequate one.

Does he not expect us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

He asked for that, but He sure doesn't get it. Furthermore, you cannot argue that the exchange is equal.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

Mudfrog, what if you see Jesus, not as the Good Samaritan (who has a certain amount of agency and wealth), but as the beaten and broken victim in the ditch?

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Just as God loves us with no expectation of any return, let alone an adequate one.
Does he not expect us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?

We are commanded to do so, but even if we don't the love is still there.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Mudfrog, what if you see Jesus, not as the Good Samaritan (who has a certain amount of agency and wealth), but as the beaten and broken victim in the ditch?

My initial thought is that Jesus himself cannot be a victim. Not in the sense of helpless and in need of my help.

As the suffering servant, yes, of course - but that's not hat is talked about here.

My second thought is that whist Jesus is not the victim, he is in the victims who are there.

Therefore we help out of common humanity, out of 'neighbourliness and out of love for God.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
It's interesting to me that this is one of Jesus' parables that has filtered down into non-religious, popular culture. Almost everyone knows the phrase "Good Samaritan," but the impact of the story is so watered-down in the broader culture that almost anytime you hear it, you could replace "Good Samaritan" with "helpful person," and all most (non-religious, and probably many religious) people take from the story is a general sense that "it's good to help people."

Without the story set in its Biblical context, you don't get the added challenge of offering help to the enemy, the one who is different from you, which is the whole point of the helper being a Samaritan. And even beyond that, as people on this thread have pointed out, it's not the (comparatively) easy lesson of "Be nice to the person your community identifies as an outcast," but "Help to the one who has identified YOU as an outcast; risk your own life to save your oppressor."

That's an incredibly deep and challenging message, far beyond the generic "be helpful" message that most people seems to associate with the phrase "good Samaritan."

Unfortunately there is no online version, but for another take on the importance of the marginalized hero in this story, look up Asimov's essay, "Lost in Non-Translation". In it he suggests that both the story of Ruth and Naomi and the story of the Good Samaritan represent artifacts of periods in Jewish cultural history when people were examining their attitudes toward outsiders.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Mudfrog, what if you see Jesus, not as the Good Samaritan (who has a certain amount of agency and wealth), but as the beaten and broken victim in the ditch?
My initial thought is that Jesus himself cannot be a victim. Not in the sense of helpless and in need of my help.

As the suffering servant, yes, of course - but that's not hat is talked about here.

My second thought is that whist Jesus is not the victim, he is in the victims who are there.

Therefore we help out of common humanity, out of 'neighbourliness and out of love for God.

I remember reading a story about 10 years ago told, I think, by the chief executive of Tearfund (though I may have made that up). He described a visit he made to a church in the Philippines that was situated on a huge rubbish dump. The people who came to that church survived by combing through the rubbish for things to eat or sell.

During his visit, he was invited to attend a Bible Study. The leader read out the story of the Good Samaritan, and then asked the people, "Who are you in this story?"

The chief executive's thought process went something like this: "Hm. I hope I am not the priest or the Levite. I wouldn't want to think I would just walk by. But neither am I the Good Samartian. If I'm honest and properly humble, I'm just not that brave or selfless. I think I'm probably the innkeeper - someone who's willing to do their bit as long as it doesn't cost them too much."

And then he realised that every single other person in the room saw themselves in the victim.

This anecdote changed forever how I read this story. We think we are reading the story - but really, it is reading us. The wealthy western visitor had choices, had agency - he could stay, or walk away; he could help or not, as he chose and as much as he chose. The truly poor have no such choices, no such agency. Like the victim in the story, they are robbed, battered, and discarded by the side of the road. The Christians on that rubbish heap understood themselves as having no power at all.

And on the cross, Jesus had no power at all. Absolutely none. No one and nothing has less power than a dead man. You say that Jesus "cannot be a victim. Not in the sense of helpless and in need of my help." But this is precisely what he was, what he became. He gave up every power and agency, he gave up all his divine choices, and became utterly helpless and in need of the help of Simon of Cyrene and the woman who wiped his forehead. (Not to mention his utter dependency on his mother as an infant.) We can't skip over his helplessness, and go straight to the King of Glory. His helplessness is his glory.

I'm not disagreeing with your interpretation - it makes sense to read Jesus as the Good Samaritan who helps us. But I think that it would be a more rounded reading if it includes a sense of Jesus/the Good Samaritan helping us out of his own victimhood. The Samaritan in the story presumably knows what it is to be a victim: lLiterally or figuratively, he knows what it is to be beaten, abused, recoiled from by religious people, and discarded as worthless. And so did Jesus. But do we?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I think you might actually be expounding what I already said. Jesus comes to us as the suffering servant but he is not the victim in the story.

When I say that Jesus is not the victim, I mean that his suffering, though total and complete, is actually chosen. He out himself deliberately in the place where he would suffer. He himself said 'no one takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord.' That, in many ways, is the victory of the cross. 'It is finished' is a cry of triumph 'Consummatum est!' not a sigh of a failed ending.

This is why Jesus is never a martyr.
The cross was a triumph not a failure than needed to be rescued.

Jesus the Good Samaritan helps those of us who are true victims - 'when no one but Christ could help, love lifted me.'
He helps because he has suffered. But he is not the victim on the story.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Unfortunately there is no online version, but for another take on the importance of the marginalized hero in this story, look up Asimov's essay, "Lost in Non-Translation". In it he suggests that both the story of Ruth and Naomi and the story of the Good Samaritan represent artifacts of periods in Jewish cultural history when people were examining their attitudes toward outsiders.

Interesting; I will check it out.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

quote:

This is why Jesus is never a martyr.

Actually, Revelation calls him, Revelation 3:14

quote:
The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness

Martyr means "witness."

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

You're equivocating. "Witness" is one thing. "Martyr" (witness) came later in church history to mean "one who dies for the cause of Christ" -- particularly someone who is killed because they are a Christian.

Yes, Jesus was a "witness." But he was not someone who was killed for the faith.

The word changed meaning by the time it reached the 21st century, and the way John of Patmos used it in Revelation was not the way we use it today, or that Mudfrog used it.

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

Jesus surely was killed for the faith he was a witness to, which rattled those who plotted against him. That he knew it would happen and he could have escaped doesn't mean he wasn't a martyr in both senses of the word.

Posted by wots a user name (# 18619) on :

A different view of this story is the relationship between the jews and the samartans. They hated each other.
A hated [person turns up with a seriosly injurd member of your people group. He is spending his money to take care of an enemy. When he left that inn how far do you think he got down the road before irrational vengence caught up with him?

The level of hatred makes the command to 'go and do likewise' life changing.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

IMHO a martyr is someone who dies as a witness to someone/something else (e.g. the Christian faith). A martyr is by definition logically dependent on something greater than him/herself. Jesus can't be that, because he IS himself, the center of our faith.

Or to put it another way, you could, if you didn't mind stretching the usual definition of the word, see him as the prototypical Martyr whose case informs all Christians' smaller martyrdoms. But that identity gets swamped in the larger identity of being the One people get martyred for. Rather like a plaintiff in a court case. He may be a witness also, but even when he's testifying in the witness box, nobody's going to refer to him as anything but "the plaintiff."

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
IMHO a martyr is someone who dies as a witness to someone/something else

But, isn't Jesus a witness to His Father?

"If you have seen me, you have seen the Father".

And, a witness to the love of the Godhead?

"For God so loved the world that He sent his one and only Son"

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by wots a user name:
A different view of this story is the relationship between the jews and the samartans. They hated each other.
A hated [person turns up with a seriosly injurd member of your people group. He is spending his money to take care of an enemy. When he left that inn how far do you think he got down the road before irrational vengence caught up with him?

The level of hatred makes the command to 'go and do likewise' life changing.

This to me is the whole point of the parable. To force us to broaden the group of people we consider "neighbors" even to people we despise and/or who despise us.

I fear that alternate interpretations water down this uncomfortable fact, making the parable more friendly and acceptable. "Aww, isn't that nice, Jesus wants to heal us" and not "What the fuck? You want me to love Muslims/Blacks/Whites/Hispanics/Russians/Ukrainians/etc?"

[ 11. July 2016, 15:40: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

Our sermon focused on everyone being our neighbor.

I will note, a few days too late for anyone writing a sermon, that Dr. King's "I've been to the Mountaintop" sermon is a sermon on the Good Samaritan. He reads it in the context of people looking at the sanitation workers strike and wondering what they should do. He talks about his experience of visiting the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and realizing that it was an ideal place for bandits to ambush people. If you were on the road and saw someone on the side who needed help, you might not stop, out of fear that you too might be ambushed. The Samaritan is admirable because he asks not "what will happen to me if I stop" but "what will happen to this man if I don't stop." Which I think is a pretty powerful message for the world today, especially in light of recent news in the United States.

quote:
That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Another detail of the story, so I have read, is that the man who was beaten by robbers was totally reckless and foolhardy and had only himself to blame. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was, and still is, a most dangerous place to be and literally nobody in their right mind would travel on that road alone.
Jesus' knew this, his hearers knew this, and it's unlikely that the victim would have received much sympathy.
The fact that the Samaritan stopped on that stretch of road shows the risk he himself took and serves to confirm his goodness: he helped despite the circumstances.

In a famous speech recorded in 1907, William Booth, the Founder of The Salvation Army, listed some of the people who were in need - the poor, the drunkards, the unemployed, the women on the streets. "'Brought it on themselves', do you say? Maybe so, but that doesn't prevent us from helping them."

Booth went against the grain of the 'deserving' versus the 'undeserving' poor, but he recognised that even if some people were the cause of their own poverty, they needed the help of God's people anyway.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I think that might be going a bit far. The road existed; it was a major route; not everyone is able to postpone travel long enough to acquire a party to go with him. We are never told why the man is traveling or how urgent the matter was. And the priest, Levite, and Samaritan all appear to have been traveling alone as well!

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

Maybe the victim was in a party and the attack was so brutal that everybody else ran, believing he was already dead.

ETA: As far as to who was traveling alone, I imagine Jesus just mentioned the major characters in the story, taking companions and servants being present as read.

[ 12. July 2016, 17:16: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Maybe the victim was in a party and the attack was so brutal that everybody else ran, believing he was already dead.

ETA: As far as to who was traveling alone, I imagine Jesus just mentioned the major characters in the story, taking companions and servants being present as read.

That could be, or it might not be. As something that's not in the text, it's hard to put TOO much weight on it.

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

Was there a real good Samaritan ? Although I believe the events of the Gospels happened much as described, I had always supposed that the parables were made up by Jesus to illustrate a point rather than things that actually happened. But it seems from this discussion that I was wrong.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

What are you seeing in the thread to suggest that anyone considers the Good Samaritan to be anything other than a fictional character?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Yeah I don't remember anybody in the thread positing that the GS story actually happened.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

I heard a fundamentalist, inerrancy-insisting preacher once claims that all of the parables were stories of things that had actually happened. You know, because everything in the Bible must be literally true.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
I heard a fundamentalist, inerrancy-insisting preacher once claims that all of the parables were stories of things that had actually happened. You know, because everything in the Bible must be literally true.

I have heard of such people but have never met one in the flesh. This is what comes from trying to overdefine things (like "The Bible is the Word of God"). Also it's an artifact of the Enlightenment, but that's a topic for another day/thread.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

moonlitdoor

quote:
Was there a real good Samaritan ?

Of course there was! Several in fact. Indeed, some of my best friends are Samaritans.

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

fair enough, I obviously misunderstood the recent posts as I thought they were referring to a real event about which we only had partial information.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

I understand. When we start discussing how dangerous that particular road was and speculating as to how many other people might have been in the traveling party or whether any of them were walking alone, it is easy to think that an historical event was being discussed instead of just an illustrative story told by Jesus.

I think the line gets blurry because, to make the story effective, Jesus would tell a parable based on things that his listeners would identify with or be familiar with. That leads us, in this current age, to try to understand the real-life situation: how the road was, how people would have traveled, etc. It doesn't mean the GS story was true, but it was set in a true-to-life situation.

Posted by Anselm (# 4499) on :

I recall hearing one preacher explain that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho winds in and out, such that the travelers would have seen the others who were ahead of them on the road as they wound in and out.
The levite, he said, would have most likely seen the priest ahead, and thus realised he had passed by the injured man, and so been influenced by his example.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

It does rather suppose that the thieves robbed the man on a nice open stretch of the road where others on the road could clearly see what was going on (ie: when subsequent travellers came along could see them passing by the injured man), rather than one of the locations where they would be hidden from others on the road.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
moonlitdoor
quote:
Was there a real good Samaritan ?
Of course there was! Several in fact. Indeed, some of my best friends are Samaritans.

Might it be that in today's world we could talk of the "Good Atheist" or "Good Agnostic" as well?

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

Or, depending on where you stand, the good Muslim, the good undocumented worker, the good refugee, or even the good conservative evangelical fundamentalist. Figure out what shocks you personally the most, and that's what you should probably hear.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
Or, depending on where you stand, the good Muslim, the good undocumented worker, the good refugee, or even the good conservative evangelical fundamentalist. Figure out what shocks you personally the most, and that's what you should probably hear.

Good point re shocking the most. Thus, in my western Canadian context, with daily comments here about the need to "indigenize*", we should take the stand point of the aboriginal inhabitants, and retell the parable as that of the remarkable "good Christian".

*indigenize: (re)adopt the perspective of the original inhabitants over settler cultures

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Although "otherness" is emphasised in both the telling and re-telling of the Good Samaritan, the intensity of the hostility between Jews and Samaritans arose as much from their similarities as differences. It was their competing claims to be the authentic descendants of the Mosaic tradition that fuelled their animosity: Gezirim having a more ancient provenance than Jerusalem. They were divided by orthodoxy and heresy within a culture rather than differences of culture. Indeed, we might conclude that the most intense conflicts arise between societies with a common history and values rather than between those of greatly contrasting values. Modern comparisons are not between Christians and Muslims but between Catholic and Protestant, Sunni and Shia, and the like. Perhaps we are most separate from the people most like us.

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