by Unvirtuous Abbey
Gospel Reading: Luke 10:25–37
For Sunday, July 14, 2013—Ordinary 15
Recently, after church, a senior pulled out of the parking lot, and instead of tapping the break, she hit the accelerator of her car, went over the curb, and blew through some bushes where her car came to a sudden stop. Thankfully, she was ok, though her car was damaged.
A man, who saw what happened, stopped to help. After he called her an ambulance, he went back to his car and noticed that he had a flat tire. By then, I was standing there, too, and he said to me, “That’s what I get for being a Good Samaritan.”
Hallmarkification of Parables
The story of this Samaritan is one that has been integrated into the moral fabric of society. Usually, it takes the form of a person helping someone who is in great need. Over the course of its telling, the fact that someone who grosses you out (who offends you, even) is the hero of the story has been lost, or at the very least, pushed to the side in its “Hallmarkification.”
But let’s take this opportunity to let this parable that Jesus tells be a radical story again.
A Radical Story
Jesus chooses, in many cases, to answer a question with a story. When Jesus tells a parable in Luke, it is a life-altering event for the person who hears it because the message of Jesus is the one we don’t want to hear. Jesus shows us how to speak a story to what is unjust in life. In his stories he lifts up the ones we put down. When we go to the left, he veers to the right. It’s a time of reversals when Jesus decides to tell you a story. And you have two options: run in the opposite direction, or let it change your life so that you can live a fuller, more eternal life.
There’s a lesson here. When faced with something powerful that overwhelms us, tell it a different story because there are times when we need a new narrative in life.
The Importance of Stories
In her novel Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko writes,
“I will tell you something about stories. They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don’t have anything if you don’t have stories.”
Beyond the message of the parable, there is a commandment to love. Jesus shows that we can define only the subject of love, not the object. As much as a gesture of compassion for a wounded human being, this story is also a commentary on temple politics.
The Central Metaphor
The central metaphor for Jewish life in Jerusalem was the Temple, where God touches the Earth. The Sadducees and Pharisees felt that they had the correct interpretation of Judaism, and that groups like the Samaritans did not. Everything had to do with the Temple. And God appeared once a year, in that exact place, when the high priests went to where the arc of the covenant was kept. Much of Jewish life revolved around priests, purity, and the temple. There was a lot you had to do to be considered clean, especially for a temple priest.
So, in the story that Jesus tells, it would make sense that the priest or the Levite wouldn’t stop to help the half-dead man who had been beaten and stripped. That would be the logical thing to do, because if they did stop to help, the exposure to bodily fluids and broken flesh alone would mean that they would not be able to participate in the temple rituals.
The Hardest Question
Jesus was a normal Jew in his time. The temple is a big subject for him. But he rejected power and money and took under his wing those who were abused by these things. He helped them to live eternally: to understand their inherent value in the kingdom of God.
Is it still possible to lift up the dehumanized by giving them a name like “Good?”
Unvirtuous Abbey appeared on the Twitter scene on August 6th, 2010. They are a slightly sarcastic, yet hopeful, group of monks. They try to elevate the conversation with humorous tweets about the Bible, God, and Jesus. They also pray about geeks, Guns and Roses, and Charlie Sheen. They have been interviewed by The Times -Union, The Practical Catholic and the Virtual Abbey. They consider themselves lucky to be among the guest bloggers of "The Hardest Question" and readily trade chores for the chance to write...anonymously, of course.
