The Semi-Good Samaritan [Sunset Observer #49]

February 3, 2017 Victor El-Khouri 2 Comments

…By Whitney Farmer
@farmer_whitney (Twitter/FLICKR) or farmerwhitney (Instagram) and whitney.farmer.146 (Facebook)
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Un Pop Culture

They surprised me. It was time for me to be quiet and listen instead of being the one talking.

I had underestimated their fear and the dangers that had persuaded them to abandon their familiar lives and come to America. Everything that they described to me I believed, and more than half of what they feared we were all facing now and in the future – and why – seemed credible to me.

The students in the ESL class who were immigrants were telling me their opinion of the executive order that temporarily banned immigration from seven countries and from Syrian refugees indefinitely. Most of these students were Coptic Christians from Egypt, however. So, they weren’t directly affected…yet? Still, their opinions carried more weight than mine even within my own head because of what had they lived with and eventually escaped.

But this particular class is held at a church with members from their congregation. Because of that, I have permission to talk about issues of faith. The policy of a geographic US being separated from THEM in the midst of this de facto guerilla war might reap strategic benefits. But that this action could cause us to reap a whirlwind seems in my imagination to be more likely.

As our class settled on an uneasy conclusion that we don’t know what will happen from this policy, our conversation shifted to one of faith.

In the midst of kings and courtiers, it might not be popular to stand apart and remind the room that higher laws might apply to some present in that room who thought that they could just blend in with the crowd. Higher laws that don’t destroy what has been written but instead fulfill it…If a border has been closed to the poor, the desolate, the widows and orphans, people who call themselves Christians haven’t been given permission to stay home behind locked doors. Our orders are the same.

I read again the story of the Good Samaritan this morning (in the book of Luke 10:25-37). I suppose I needed to have done it sooner because I am basically sick to my stomach a few times each day. Even at church, I’m waiting for someone to come at me wanting to fight. People that I love say things that I don’t recognize as being a part of this person that I have trusted. But after reading that story again, I understand.

It starts with a lawyer, no offense intended. Some of my best friends are lawyers. But everyone has an opinion these days and somehow somewhere everyone has been granted permission to act savagely when speaking one’s mind, up to and including spiking the football after someone has been carried bloody off the field.

So, this lawyer wants to know from Jesus how he can secure his inheritance. First mistake: An inheritance is simply granted to the family, not earned. Jesus then describes what would be the characteristics of someone who was one of the family of God, and therefore entitled to an inheritance. Like a child who has the eyes of his father, a child of God would be identifiable as having a heart like His. He would love Him with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength…and he would love his neighbor as himself.

Then this lawyer, wanting to squirm out of doing too much in this world, asks the question that revealed the true nature of his heart:

“Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus doesn’t come at the stone cold heart of this lawyer directly. Just like in a garden, you need to water the hard ground a bit to soften it before it is able to soak in the full deluge. Otherwise it just pours into the gutter. So, He starts telling the story of the Samaritan.

Once upon a time, there was this guy who was on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho who got jumped and left for dead. The first guy to find him was a spiritual leader who walked on the other side of the street to avoid him. The second guy was a politician who came and looked at him, then did the same thing, crossing the street and leaving him to die alone. The next guy who came upon the scene of the crime was a Samaritan. To let you know, a Samaritan was the bottom of the social barrel. Mixed blood, living outside beyond even the fringes of the prime real estate. Jewish people wouldn’t even accept a cold cup of water on a hot day from one of them. (John 4:9)

This Samaritan is the one who saved the man’s life. He set him up in a safe place with the medical and food supplies he needed with the promise to return after his trip and take care of any additional expenses. He didn’t just do a semi-good job. He did what he would have wanted someone to do for him if the tables were turned.

Then Jesus did something interesting. He reversed the original question that the lawyer had asked and gave it back to him, saying, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to him…?” The lawyer said that it was the dude who showed mercy. Not talked. Showed.

Jesus brought it home by saying, “Go. Do the same.”

It seems pretty clear to me.

Sure, God bless America. Absolutely. But America isn’t my family. I can’t expect America to do what my family does. And just like that spiritual guy and that politician on the road who passed by the dying man on the road, they – to my surprise and grief – might not be my family either. Even if we have on the same t-shirts and read the same books and live in the same area of prime real estate.

My family looks like my father: Same eyes, but also same hands and feet.

Quote of the Blog, from the Samaritan woman at the well, in John chapter 4 verse 9: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

Meme from an unknown creator.
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