Who Are You?
In a book I consider necessary reading for anyone who preaches, What Do They Hear?, Mark Allan Powell made the stunning observation that pastors/preachers tend to identify with Jesus while lay folks tend to identify with the characters of the story. In Jesus’s parable of the Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), which I took a look at last week and which I want to explore again with you, we are invited to identify with a number of characters. Here is the parable, and then I will make some observations.
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
It is customary for us, as I mentioned before, to want to identify with the Samaritan but, unless we are ethnic enemies of the majority dominant ethnic group, we aren’t permitted to do that. Of course, it takes imagination to enter into the short stories of Jesus (as Amy-Jill Levine calls them), so let’s begin by asking with whom we most identify in the parable.
Are you…
The lawyer who asks the question to begin with (10:25)?
The robber/bandits (10:30)?
The priest or levite who fails to show compassion (10:31)?
The Samaritan (10:33)?
The wounded man (10:30)?
The innkeeper (10:30)?
The donkey – as one man suggested Sunday (10:34)?
Or, let’s back up, are you the apostles (9:51-56)?
Perhaps you are more than one character, and perhaps at one time you are one but at another time you are another of the characters. That seems more than likely for all of us.
The parable does its deepest magic when we identify with the priest, the levite, or the lawyer, even if we are all invited to act like the Samaritan. It’s intent is to awaken us from our uncompassion to compassion, but stories like this invite us to imagine and to enter into various characters.
Who are you?
Labeling happens. What we have found is that one person’s victim is another person’s robber, or one person’s robber is another person’s victim. One person’s Samaritan can be the robber for another person. One person’s innkeeper maybe another person’s enabler. One wonders, then, if stories like this are invitations for us to label and assign, but then to listen again to see where we are ourselves.
Who are you?
Jesus wants each of us to do the likewise of the Samaritan. I’m finding an increasing number of churches that want to be innkeepers for the wounded, and they want individuals in their churches to be Samaritans, and they are perceiving the presence of robbers/bandits on the path from Jerusalem to Jericho.
When churches become inns or innkeepers for the wounded, which is what churches are by their calling as they follow Jesus who cared for the wounded, they become pockets and cultures of tov, of goodness.
The church cultures in which each of us dwells will shape which character we identify with. I heard not that long ago of a pastor who excused the priest and levite because they were in a hurry to care for someone down the road. That takes more imagination than I have in this parable.
Churches that are culturally and systemically abusive will identify with, or not identify with, the ones Jesus wants us to identify with according to our behaviors and cultures.
Where do you fit? Who are you?
I’ve appreciated the way the church fathers commonly interpreted this story - which was allegorically.
Patristic interpretation:
The wounded traveler = all humanity
The robbers = the devil/evil powers
The priest/levite = The law and prophets, unable to rescue
The Samaritan = Christ, who saves, heals and restores
The inn = the church, where those rescued by Christ are received
into community and cared for
The innkeeper = Christians who care for the wounded traveler
with the resources given by Christ.
The Samaritan’s promised return = Christ’s second coming
I kind of think it’s useful to think about this interpretation first before moving on to our own identification. It’s worth asking not “who do I identify with or who would I like to be?” But rather “who, if I’m honest, am I really acting like?” It’s worth asking - “am I acting like the priest or Levite - focused on myself, maybe passing others by in a spirit of self righteousness?”
I tremble to claim to be the Samaritan after reading patristic interpretations. And perhaps evangelical Christians - with so often a focus on doing and saving others - would do well to sit more with seeing ourselves as the innkeeper - participating in the Samaritan’s work as a minor character but not ultimately the ones whose vision and action and resources drive the story.
I was troubled earlier this year by a sermon on this passage by my former abusive pastor at an abusive church. He focused on viewing ourselves as the wounded traveler and Christ as the Samaritan (kind of like the patristic view I guess) so that it became an illustration of salvation by grace alone through Christ alone. I gave it an “A” for soteriology but an “F” for exegesis and application. If baffled me how the entire sermon became focused on our relationship to Jesus and entirely ignored what I take to be the punchline: “go and do likewise”. It baffled me that people could walk away from that message and likely not feel any conviction for living like the priest and Levite. But I wondered, and wonder still, am I wrong in judging that sermon for its failure to challenge comfortable, White American Christianity (which is the demographic of that church)? Are there are multiple ways to read/emphasize that story, and did that pastor just limit himself to one legitimate reading? Is it acceptable to preach a sermon on that parable and omit the “go and do likewise”? Really curious what others think.