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The Trouble with Jesus
by Constance Hastings
Who Is My Neighbor?
Dec 17, 2019
The Wrong Question
When is the question not the real question, or when is the answer not the full answer?
Take the parable Jesus told of “The Good Samaritan.” Who is my neighbor? was the question posed to Jesus by a lawyer of religion. (Luke 10:25-37) The law said, “Love God…and love your neighbor. So Good Lord, define your terms. Rather than a legalistic textbook answer, Jesus tells a story.
Most people have heard it or if not the full story, at least the term, Good Samaritan. It’s so common it’s actually a dictionary entry, and Alexa is equally familiar with it. Based in the story is a man who was robbed and beaten by bandits and a stranger known as a Samaritan. The stranger gives him first aid and takes him to an inn for care. The Samaritan leaves the innkeeper with extra money to care for the man and a promise of more if necessary when he makes a return trip.
Who is my neighbor? The official definition is a person who gratuitously gives help or sympathy to those in distress. The Samaritan fits the description. He didn’t have to stop and help this guy; there was no reward in doing so. After all, the poor guy was robbed. He likely didn’t have anything left to repay the help the Samaritan gave. When the Samaritan found him, he was half dead. He couldn’t even work it off. So what the Samaritan did for this poor soul was out of his pocket and nothing going back in. But he did help the guy out and saved his life. Good for him! We should all be like this, and if so, the world would be a gentler, kinder place.
Good grief, no.
Well, if you like those kind of stories that make you feel good with what’s just on the surface, remember, some people get the same benefit from watching porn. (NOT a suggestion, try Hallmark movies instead.) The passage deserves a closer look, and you’d think a good lawyer would know that.
The unlikely hero in this story is a Samaritan. Jesus’ audience was Jewish. Jews hated Samaritans. Jews hated Samaritans for all the ethnic, racial, religious reasons the human race can dig up to separate people. It was prejudice to the core. For these law-biding Jews to listen to a story whereby one of their own was indebted to “those kind of people” was sickening. Jesus doesn’t feel it.
Who is my neighbor?
Yes, that was the question, but at the end of the story, Jesus doesn’t leave it there. He had this problem of not knowing when to just let things be, end on a high note, gain some much needed respect from the religious elite who plainly did not like him. Oh no, instead he takes that question and reverses it. “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” That means, the one in need is not my neighbor, but the one who gave the help. If the Law says, Love your Neighbor, and my Neighbor is the guy I hate, then what am I going to do?
It wasn’t the first time Jesus had said this. The “Love your Neighbor” thing is preached across spiritual realms. No, Jesus pushed into places that were uncomfortable in the least and threatening to the power brokers of the day. In his big Sermon on the Mount, he’d said it more directly, “You have heard that the Law of Moses says, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you.” (Matthew 5:43-44)
The lawyer in the scene answered correctly Jesus’ reversed question, “the one who showed him mercy.” But Jesus didn’t let him walk away without a challenge. “Go and do likewise.” Be a neighbor to those in need, and be a neighbor to those who don’t like you and would just as soon see you gone.
“Who is my neighbor?” was a good question, but it was the wrong question. It wasn’t the real question because what the lawyer wanted was an affirmation of what people do anyway just because it’s something to make yourself feel good. That’s a type of domestication.
Jesus didn’t tell stories or preach to let people be good people. His stories instead ask questions of his audience, then and now, that get under the skin, itch and fester until the story sits in the soul.
If you have the urge to be a Good Samaritan sometime, rethink the story. With the full answer then, “Go and do likewise.”
It’s extremely late. Nicodemus sneaks in. He shouldn’t be there. He’s from the other side, the side that just saw how dangerous this troublemaker can be. But Nick questions. His questions get slammed with answers that may have later made him think this guy is nuts, yeah, dangerous is right. But that talk Jesus had with him still have people thinking. It’ll keep you up late even now. Nicodemus has lots of company
No. This isn’t fair!...This can’t be happening….I know he said it, but we just thought it was a mood swing thing. With a little common sense, he’d come around….No, he’s determined to go through with this…. What is going to become of us?....We’re somewhere between done and dead meat….We’ve seen him at his best. Why doesn’t everyone else?....God, NO….Losing him will be the end of everything….I never knew my heart could break like this.
They had no idea what they were getting into when he had recruited them for his purposes. Some say they weren’t the brightest bulbs on the street. The only attribute which spoke most for them was they were teachable…
You Christians! If ever there a more divisive movement in history, it’s yours! You people just can’t stay together. You guys just keep fighting among yourselves and splitting up and moving off in different directions. If you don’t like what’s going on in your church, you take your money and walk. Sometimes, a whole group of you jump ship and make your own deal somewhere else. There’s enough of this kind of thing going on; why would we ever need religion to show us how it’s done? May your God help you.
No greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for friends, is to daily relinquish the right to one’s self in service for others.
The Trouble with Jesus: His words grow like a vine, thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Awww, so sweet. A story about a good shepherd and his sheep. I can see now the old, faded pictures of this Jesus-figure carrying his lambs. Like really, what does this have to do with today? We left this kind of thing in the nursery with Mary’s little lamb. Baa-baa to you.
Every single one of them did it. When they heard the news, they didn’t believe it. Don’t blame them. We are no different. To be honest, it helps. It helps a lot, for if the report was swallowed hook, line, and sinker as the fishermen they were, it’d be pretty evident this story was falsified with some ulterior purpose in mind, like fashioned to make themselves into some kind of holy heroes. Not how it happened. They didn’t believe it, plain and simple.
Could it be that faith is not actually a fully convinced mindset? Could it be that to truly have faith an element of doubt, perceptions that rest in possibly not as much as possibly so, is necessary? Do faith and doubt exist not as opposites but as integral parts of each other?
How do you get out of bed in the morning when the day is still shrouded in darkness? How do you rise when grief, anger, and anxious fear sink deep into your soul? Why should you open your eyes to a pain that pierces whatever faith that is left? Somehow, they did.
