the Road to Jericho
Introduction
Parables
The Parable of the Good Samaritan is perhaps the
greatest of all Jesus’ parables (Lk l0: 25-37). Most of the time I am reluctant to use
superlatives, but here I am not. What
Jesus says about the first and the greatest of all the commandments I say about
this parable: “Upon it rest the whole
Law and the Prophets” (Mt 22:40).
Parables are a
literary device whose words can trigger off as many different interpretations
or meanings as there are ears and hearts that are listening. A parable has
something for everyone; it gives everyone a chance to take off on his or her
own. Listen to what “our friend” finds for herself in this one: “I’m just like
the Good Samaritan,” she writes. “All I can do is pick up the wounded and dump
them off on someone else. It's the long
haul, the abiding, tender, loving care that counts. That's why it's the innkeeper who's the Good Samaritan in
my book." What an insight! It
reminds of “the long haul,” which all those heroic caregivers undergo for loved
ones stricken with Alzheimer’s, which is sometimes called “the long farewell.”
A parable about labels
This Mother of
All Parables is busy with all the many issues we meet on the highway of life.
For example, Good Samaritan is a parable of the many labels that pave
the highway of life; some of them are dangerous labels, like “Samaritan” and
“Jew.” In Jesus’ day, “Samaritan” means “bad,” “impure breed,” “not chosen.”
”Jew,” on the other hand, means “good,” “pure breed,” “chosen.” Centuries later
by some great irony of fate, the tables will be turned in Nazi Germany: “Jew”
will come to mean “impure mongrel” and
“German” will come to mean “the master race.”
Listen again to what our friend finds for herself in this parable:
“It is wrong to
say we love our neighbor or should love our neighbor because he or she is
human. Just remember that Adolph Hitler, for instance, decided that Jews are
not human. So he slaughtered them in cold blood as we slaughter cattle. Maybe the Jewish priest who walked by in
Jesus’ story decided that the victim at the roadside was not human; the guy
himself might have been a Samaritan (and you know how Jews looked down
Samaritans). In `Jesus’ book,’” she continues, “love of neighbor does not
depend on whether that person is human or not; it depends on whether we
are human.”
A parable about bad religion
Good Samaritan
is a parable about religion at its worst. Bad religion turns out
heartless people, like the Jewish priest and Levite who don’t do anything good
on the highway of life (called “sins of
omission”). Bad religion turns out people like the Rev. Phelps who do
mean and ugly things on the highway of life (called “sins of commission”): at
the funeral of Mat Shepard, the gay student from Wyoming College, he sports his
hate-filled sign inspired by his religion that
“God hates fags and buries them in hell.”
A parable of roles
The Good
Samaritan is also a parable about the various roles we play on the road
between Jerusalem and Jericho. There we
are sometimes the poor victim, sometimes the heartless priest, sometimes the
Good Samaritan. From that point of view, the parable always triggers a personal
story that happened to me on the highway of life.
It is New Year’s Day, 1984, high noon. To celebrate with relatives, I am speeding 20 mph to Chicago amidst the worst
snowstorm of the season. I see a young couple waylaid with car trouble. All of
a sudden the road between Milwaukee and Chicago is that old road between
Jerusalem and Jericho. The old parable of Jesus haunts me and makes me stop.
Terrible mechanic that I am, there isn't much I can do, but I can drive on
ahead, get off at the next exit, and make a S.O.S. call to their family. I do
that great Samaritan deed, and then continue on my way, 20 mph.
Not ten minutes later, my car leaves the
highway; I hit the one and only sign for miles around, and come to a deafening
halt in a deep ditch. I climb up through snow and wind and trauma to the level
of the highway, there only to be traumatized even more: tons and tons of
priests and Levites pass me by! The only one to eventually stop is an ugly
Illinois State Patrolman. He is mad because he isn’t home watching the foot
ball games. He wants fifty dollars from me and he threatens to throw me into
jail (I don’t have the renewal sticker on my license plate; it’s in the glove
compartment). Good Samaritan is a parable
about the various roles we play on the highway of life: sometimes we are
the Good Samaritan, sometimes, not even ten minutes later, we are the victim,
sometimes the heartless priest or patrolman.
A parable about a great human need
Good Samaritan
is a parable about a great human need. On the road to Jericho there
are four people, and all four are in great need: the man waylaid by robbers is in desperate need of the humanity
of a compassionate human being passing by. On that same road, the Jewish
priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan passing by are also in desperate
need: in need of their own humanity.
On the road to Jericho the man left half dead needs my humanity. But at the end
of the day, I need my humanity even more than he does.
So that road to
Jericho runs right through my supermarket where, in my shopping cart is a whole
mountain of items to be checked out, and behind me is a little lady with only two
items. It’s a moment in which another needs my humanity. But without a shadow
of a doubt, it’s a moment in which I need my humanity far more than she does.
And when I say to her, “Come on honey, you’re first before me,” my humanity has
turned me into a human being. And remember this: To be born of a human womb, and to turn into the human being we
were created to be is, by far and away, the “Mother of all Human Success
Stories.” Just as the “Mother of all Human Failure Stories” is to be conceived
in a human womb but to come forth as
non-human, subhuman, or inhuman; in a word, to come forth as monster. I cannot help to think about that dog, a
stolen pet, which was recently tied to a pole and left there for nine days to
be baked to death in the hot sun. That dog is dead now, and believe me, he
rests in the bosom of Abraham, if God there is. And that monster, who tied the
dog to the post, if he dies as monster, will surely be buried in Hades.
A parable about morality
Good Samaritan is a parable of about the true heart and
soul of Christian morality (or immorality). We always make sex or
rather “sexual moralism” to be the heart and soul of morality. Recall the recent past when the entire
Nation was totally preoccupied for over an entire year with the sexual
escapades of a President. It’s not sex
but compassion that is the heart and soul of Christian morality or
immorality. When that’s your take on
morality, then you read the parable this way: “Once upon a time a man was going
from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell in with robbers who left the poor man
half dead. Along came a Jewish priest who saw the man and passed him by. Along
came a Levite who saw the half-dead man and passed him by (Lk 10: 25-37). My gosh, how much more immoral than that
can you get?”
Then along came a
Samaritan who stopped and poured the oil of compassion into the poor man’s
wounds, hoisted him on his beast of burden, and hurried him off to the nearest
inn where he asked the innkeeper (the `real Samaritan’ in her book) to care for
him. Then digging deep into his pocket
the Samaritan pulled out a good sum of money and said to the attendant, ` If I
owe you more, I shall pay you in full on my way back home’ (Lk 10:25-37). My gosh, how much more moral than that
can you get?”
A parable about stopping
Good Samaritan
is a parable about stopping or not stopping. Here is an issue, which
taxes (or at least should tax) the conscience of anyone who claims the title
“Christian.” A Christian may never ever simply walk by. A Christian is never
ever simply scot-free to walk by a human need on the highway of life. A
Christian must at least be momentarily stopped in his or her tracks and be
exercised in conscience. When my friend writes, “I’m just like the Good
Samaritan in that great parable of Jesus: all I can do is pick up the wounded
and dump them off on someone else,” you can hear her conscience bothering her.
And mind you, she has stopped and picked up the poor guy and hurried him off to the nearest inn. True, she’s not in
it “for the long haul,” but she has stopped. That’s something at least;
in that there is some salvation.
In another
place our mystic friend really takes off on her own when she writes: “I know
that a man is lying out there, half dead. I also know that I can’t cope with it. So I don’t go to Jericho. I stay in
Jerusalem within the security of the temple where I live out bread-breaking
symbolically.” Symbolic bread breaking is not the real stuff. The real
stuff takes place out there on the road to Jericho. Symbolic bread breaking is
important and good if it celebrates the bread breaking that has taken place out
there on the road to Jericho. If it has
nothing to celebrate, it is empty symbolism, and like a cracked earthen vessel,
it carries no water.
“So I don’t go
to Jericho. I stay in Jerusalem within the security of the temple where I live
out bread-breaking symbolically.” I think it is her honesty which is calling into doubt her whole
life, which on the one hand claims to be religious but, on the other hand,
makes sure that her religious life doesn’t cost her too much, as it had indeed
cost the Good Samaritan who dug deep into his pocket to pay the innkeeper.
A Christian may
not simply walk by a human need: a Christian should at least walk by with a
disturbed conscience. Or if there is
indeed a good reason for not stopping
but walking by, like fear
(fear of the many robbers, con-artists and free-loaders that walk the
highway of life or fear of law suit that will punish your good deed), then a
Christian should walk by, if not with a
disturbed conscience, at least with a disturbed human heart, which says,
“Oh how I want to stop but I may not.”
Walking by animals
My friend, by
the way, speaks about walking by not just humans in need but animals as
well. That turns me on. There are also animals out there that are waylaid on
the highway of life by monster inhuman beings.
Like the stolen dog, named Riggs, someone’s beloved pet which eventually
was tied to a pole for nine days, and baked to death in the sun (front page Journal
Sentinel, July 11, 2001). Maybe if someone had stopped, Riggs would be living
today. I always stop for animals tied up in the sun or beaten by monsters. I am not a courageous person but in such
case my anger is infinitely braver than my fear.
At the present moment we, the Church of Milwaukee,
and the Church of Rome, are arrived at a moment of truth. Everyone is watching
us and everyone is having doubts about us. At the present moment we, the Church
of Milwaukee, and the Church of Rome, like our mystic friend, have chosen not
to take the road to Jericho, because there are simply too many people out there
waylaid by human needs: like good
red-blooded Americans citizens who need health insurance; like hardworking men
and women who need a decent wage to
provide a decent living for their families; like little children and animals
who need protection from monsters; like our grandpas and grandmas who need
protection from the nursing home industry; like inner city kids who need a decent education so that they don’t end up as another statistic on the
well-fare and prison rolls; like our Good Mother Earth who needs protection from plunderers and
marauders.
Like our mystic friend, we have chosen not to take
the road to Jericho, because there are simply too many people out there waylaid
by human needs, and we don’t want to cope with them. Instead we choose now to
stay in Jerusalem, “locked up in the security of the temple,” where we
are now expending huge amounts of time, energy, and money, and where we are
exchanging huge amounts of ugly debate, bad will, and even camouflaged
hate -- and all this over the
renovation of the temple in which we have chosen to lock ourselves, instead of
taking off for Jericho. And in the meantime we, like our mystic friend, have
decided to settle for the “symbolic breaking of bread” which is not the real
stuff; that takes place out there on the road to Jericho. And at the end of the
day, mere symbolic bread-breaking, with no real stuff to back it up, is, in
fact, like a cracked earthen vessel
which carries no water, and it is far less costly than digging deep into your pocket, as did the Good Samaritan.