The Good Samaritan (Der barmherzige Sameriter) © Paula Modersohn-Becker,1907
Ethnocentrism, Racism, and
THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN BY RON PETRUSHA
O
ver two millennia of Christian history, the meaning of Jesus’ parables has often been toned down. This is particularly true of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), which is usually understood to mean that we should do charitable deeds for one another. Although we certainly should be concerned with good works, that most likely is not what Jesus intended to convey. Jesus’ parables were meant to be shocking, upsetting, and disturbing. For those who listened to and considered them, they aimed to lead to a reevaluation of the character of God, of one’s understanding of one’s faith, and of one’s relationship to the surrounding world. A fruitful starting point in understanding
any of Jesus’ parables is to ask what the disturbing element in it is. There are three in the parable of the Good Samaritan:
• Jesus’ response to the scribe’s question • Casting a Samaritan as the parable’s hero • The behavior of the priest and Levite The scribe’s question, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) is hardly an innocent one; the scribe expects Jesus to answer based on the Torah. Jesus, however, poses quite a different question, and in the process reaches a radically different conclusion than the scribe expects, and the Torah would seem to demand. The scribe’s question assumes that “neighbor” is an attribute, that some
possess this attribute while others do not. Neighbor is an exclusive rather than inclusive category, and the scribe’s question focuses on the limits of “neighbor.” For the scribe, “my neighbor” further suggests personalization, leaving open the possibility that his neighbor is not Jesus’ neighbor. Moreover, the scribe knows very well that the definition of neighbor: It is an Israelite (Leviticus 20:26-29; Deuteronomy 15:7) or an immigrant living among God’s people (Leviticus 19:33-34). Jesus’ response focuses not on neighbor as an attribute but on neighbor as a verb or an activity. While the scribe wants Jesus to define the people whom he should love as his neighbor, Jesus makes it clear that loving one’s neighbor means to be a neighbor.
A M AT T E R O F S P I R IT
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Despite Jesus’ different focus, this still poses a variation of the scribe’s question: To whom should we act as a neighbor? Jesus answers this by focusing on the leading character of his parable, the good Samaritan, as he has aptly been named throughout church history. But what is a good Samaritan? From the viewpoint of first century Jewish culture, there were no good Samaritans; good and Samaritan were a contradiction in terms. The Israelites divided humanity into three hierarchical groups based on their relationship to YHWH. First were God’s chosen people and proselytes, those who had a knowledge of YHWH. Next were the Pagans. Close contact with Pagans was seen as defiling, and Pagans were viewed as idolaters, but in their defense, they did not yet know YHWH. At the bottom of the hierarchy were Samaritans, an ethnic group formed from the intermarriage of the Israelites (the people of the Northern Kingdom), surrounding peoples, and the groups forced to migrate to Palestine during the Assyrian and Babylonian occupations. Samaritans knew YHWH but, by mixing Pagan religions with Judaism, had rejected him in favor of a syncretic religion; they were both idolaters and apostates. Samaritans were the ultimate version of “the other.” The notion that the parable merely calls on us to perform good works ignores that the question posed by Jesus does not concern the activity of being a neighbor, but rather explores the limits of being a neighbor. Because it is a Samaritan who acts as neighbor, and because he extends compassion, medical care, and material support to an unknown victim who is very likely a Jew, indicates that the concept of neighbor has no limits, that it is inclusive and not exclusive, that it does not differentiate between “us” and “them” or between “us” and “other.” In other words, this is a parable directed against ethnocentrism and, in the context of our own culture, against both ethnocentrism and racism. Still shocking, though less shocking
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as the presence of the Samaritan, is the behavior of the priest and the Levite. As members of the temple establishment, they both possess an imputed holiness and are expected to observe the Torah, which in this context means to express love of neighbor. Instead, they cross to the other side of the road. While most interpretations merely point out they do not want to get involved (which seems patently obvious) or characterize the priest and Levite as cowardly or callous (which seems subjective), these explanations are merely superficial. Just as the Samaritan is shocking because he personifies one who acts as neighbor, the shocking behavior of the priest and Levite must stem from the parable’s viewing them as representations of priests and Levites in general.
“ J E S U S’ P A R A B L E O F T H E GOOD SAMARITAN IS NOT ONLY P A R A B L E- A S- E N A C T M E N T, BUT ALSO A PROPHETIC C A L L T O A C T I O N.” Priests and Levites often lived in Jericho and commuted between it and the temple in Jerusalem when it was time for them to serve. Although the parable speaks of the Levite going down the road, it does not necessarily indicate a direction (that is, going down the steep incline from Jerusalem to Jericho). Instead, the most probable explanation is that the priest and the Levite are both traveling from Jericho to Jerusalem to serve in the temple. When they encounter the gravely injured man in the road, they likely see a man stripped of his clothes, so that any means of identifying him has been removed. And they do not know whether he is alive or dead. Either because they are observing the Torah’s strict definition of neighbor (because they cannot tell whether the injured man is a Jew or not) or because they do not wish to become ritually unclean by touching a dead body (which would prohibit them from ministering in the temple for seven
days, according to Numbers 19:11-13), they choose to turn away. They have focused on the parts of Torah observance convenient to them while neglecting “the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). In other words, either because of their ethnocentrism or because of their focus on the ritual rather than the human aspects of the law, they have completely distorted the requirements of God. Unfortunately, many groups within Christianity expresses that same neglect today. Portions of the Gospels sometimes enact events or prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, the beginning of the passion story in Matthew 27:1-10 is a prophetic enactment of Psalms 2. With its cast of diametrically opposed characters, the parable of the Good Samaritan is also an enactment, in this case of Isaiah 1:2-17. On the one hand, their action in passing to the other side of the road suggests that the priest and Levite offer sacrifices that God views as an abomination, and prayers that God refuses to hear (Isaiah 1:11-13,15). On the other hand, the Samaritan in his show of compassion and self-sacrifice expresses the call of God to “learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is not only parable-as-enactment, but also a prophetic call to action. Jesus expands the definition of neighbor to include all humankind, and in the process challenges both ethnocentrism and racism. And just as the Samaritan defied ethnic boundaries to come to the aid of the victim, our Lord calls us to explore our own sense of boundaries and by expanding them, to reject racism and instead to come to the aid of the oppressed.
Ron Petrusha was trained as a historian and worked as a writer of computer programming documentation. He now teaches Bible, Church history, patristics, and theology at St. John Mary Vianney Catholic Church in Kirkland, Washington.