Archive for the ‘“Good Samaritan”’ Category

Who is my neighbour?

July 12, 2025

Pentecost 5 – 2025

Luke 10:25-37

Marian Free

In the name of God whose love knows no constraints. Amen.

I don’t know about you, but at the moment I am overwhelmed by the state of the world, and I feel utterly powerless to intervene or to make any difference at all. Gaza, of course, is the most demanding of our attention, but not us let forget Ukraine, South Sudan and all the other nations involved in on-going conflict or civil war. Then there is the changing geopolitical situation and the potential economic consequence of the US tariffs and aid cuts. All over the world innocent people are suffering the effects of climate change and the increasing unpredictability of the weather. Here in Australia the people of Northern Rivers have experienced once in a lifetime flood twice in two years. They barely have time to recover before they have to begin again. (And that in a wealthy first world country. Imagine trying to re-build one’s life and livelihood in a nation without the resources to which we have access.) I find myself paralysed with indecision. What difference can I make? Will my small contributions help at all? 

I’m not even sure how to pray. In the first instance, I do not have the words to use. Secondly, I am not at all sure that my prayers, however fervent, have made a difference.

It is tempting to throw up my hands and leave it all to God. It is equally tempting to narrow my focus, to decide who and what is most deserving of my help or to justify inaction because not being able to do it all I find myself not doing enough.

In order to rationalise my inaction, I find myself thinking about how different the world today is from Jesus’ world and wonder if some of Jesus’ instructions simply don’t translate into the  21st century. In the first century, there was no social service, there were (at least for those of Jesus’ faith) clear guidelines about responsibility for family, for widows and orphans. Smaller communities meant that people were more aware of other people’s business, and they would probably have known the background of the person who begged them for a small coin or two. Without modern forms of communication very few would have known the state of the world beyond their village or region.

In contrast, today in Australia we have social welfare (even if it is inadequate), six-foot fences separate us from our neighbours and in cities that number millions there is a limit to how much we can know about the circumstances of others. The internet and social media mean that we know about disasters all over the world almost as soon as they happen. 

The question: ‘Who is my neighbour?’ is even more pressing than it was two thousand years ago. I see my physical neighbours only when I make an effort or pass them on the street. It is generally impossible to know how I can be a neighbour to them.

Jesus’ answer to the lawyer’s question is important, but so too is the question, and the intent of the one asking. We are told that the lawyer is seeking to justify himself. He knows the answer to his first question “What must I do?” – he is a lawyer after all. He asks the second question because he wants to limit and confine the extent to which he has to follow the law. He wants to narrow down what it means ‘to love his neighbour as himself.’ 

No doubt the lawyer, and no doubt those who have gathered around fully expect Jesus to limit neighbourliness to fellow Jews. After all, they are the chosen.

Jesus however does at least two unexpected things in his story of the man who was a neighbour. Instead of giving a definition of neighbour, Jesus tells a story of neighbourliness. He subverts the expectation that it will be the good, pious Jews on their way to Jerusalem who will offer assistance to the wounded man, and he gives the starring role to a rank outsider, an enemy, a person considered unclean according to Jewish law! The example of neighbourliness is the person least expected.

The Samaritan did not consider political or social implications of helping a Jew, he did not withhold his help because of the deep enmity between his people and theirs, and he did not stop to consider his capacity to help. (What would he do if the inn keeper charged him more than he could afford?)

Jesus doesn’t directly answer the lawyer’s question. He doesn’t say that the Samaritan is the neighbour who should be loved. What Jesus does is to confront the lawyer with what it means to be a neighbour. Using the despised Samaritan as the example, Jesus makes it clear that there are no boundaries to “neighbour”. Shocking as it might be to Jesus’ audience, it is the outsider who demonstrates that being a neighbour doesn’t consider the race, religion, or economic status of the other. 

Love of neighbour cannot be limited or reduced to a simple formula because the definition of ‘neighbour’ has no bounds. God’s love, and therefore our love does not discriminate between worthy and unworthy, insider or outsider, but is extended to all humanity. 

The problems in the world are overwhelming, but we are not to be discouraged. We will do well if remain open-minded and open-hearted, sympathetic towards the suffering of the good, the bad and the deserving and the undeserving, the familiar and the unfamiliar and if we do all we can to alleviate that suffering through direct support, through volunteering, through political and social action and through prayer.

In this increasingly divided and fractious world. Who is my neighbour? might be the question most demanding of an answer.

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The profligacy of God

July 11, 2020

Pentecost 6 – 2020

Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

Marian Free

In the name of God who created the universe from nothing and whose boundless generosity is strewn with wild abandon throughout the world. Amen.

The parable of the sower is something of a golden oldie. Almost from our first encounter with church we learn this story and its interpretation. The imagery is graphic and simple – weeds choking, sun burning and birds eating. It makes a great Sunday School lesson. Children can be presented with pictures of seeds landing in bad or indifferent places and growing or not growing as a result. They can be encouraged to think about what sort of soil they might be and made to feel guilty because they are not disciplined enough, not brave enough.

This is a problem which not helped by the attached interpretation which is found in all three gospels – which draws our attention away from the sower to where the seed lands. However, when we are distracted by the soil – good, bad and indifferent, we fail to be astounded by the randomness – some would say thoughtlessness – of the thrower. In other words, concentrating on where the seed falls leads to our focussing on ourselves – on the state of our own spiritual ground instead of looking to where the seed comes from.  We find ourselves wondering about the state of our spiritual lives and, in the worst-case scenario, having judged ourselves we turn outwards and judge others. (Which of us represents the seeds on the path, the seeds on the rocks or the seed among thorns?) How often have we in the church thought to ourselves or out loud, that the reason that our churches are empty is because everyone else has become distracted by the cares of the world? 

Interestingly, scholars generally agree that the interpretation of the parable is a later addition – an explanation added by the early church to provide justification for the indifference of non-believers or the lack of courage or failure of commitment on the part of some who had come to faith but fallen away. This interpretation could be used to affirm members of the believing community, who could, as a consequence of their steadfastness, consider themselves to be the good soil.

Parables were, by and large, intended to stand alone. They usually said something unusual or shocking that challenged a traditional way of thinking and forced the listener to consider the world in a new way or to change their conventional way of thinking. (Think for example of the parable of the Good Samaritan – a contradiction in terms for a self-respecting first century Jew. There was no such thing as a Samaritan who was good.) The point of a parable came in the unexpected “sting” or surprise at the end – a mustard seed that becomes a tree, a farmer that sells everything for one pearl.

Further support for this argument lies in the fact that parables are usually intended to tell us something about God or about the kingdom of God. Most parables begin: “The kingdom of God is like …” To make this parable about the seed and the soil is to make the parable about ourselves rather than about God. It leads us to dwell on ourselves and our reaction to the word of God rather than directing us to consider the action and nature of God – an action that is wildly extravagant and which stands in stark contrast to the action of a careful, prudent first century farmer[1]. 

According to the parable, the sower tosses scarce and precious seed with gay abandon; is utterly heedless as to where it might land and gives no thought as to the condition of the ground where it might fall or the waste that might result. This sower, it appears, is not fixated on the final crop, nor is the sower concerned about giving each individual seed the best chance of growing and producing fruit. Rather, this sower seems to be more anxious that the seed is spread as widely and generously as possible – regardless of where it might fall and whether or not it will be able take root and grow. Here’s the point though – what seems extraordinary and rash to a prudent farmer is not as foolish as it seems – the crop that results from such carelessness is not pitiful it is enormous! The seed that does take root and grow produces grain in abundance – one hundredfold, sixtyfold and thirtyfold! 

The significance of such a crop would not have been lost on Jesus’ audience. In first century Palestine the expectation would have been that a crop would produce sevenfold – tenfold at best. Even thirtyfold would have been an amazing result, 60 would have been extraordinary and 100 would have been simply unbelievable. 

When we concentrate primarily on the interpretation of the parable – the seed and the soil – we are tempted to make the parable about us, to become self-absorbed and mean spirited, seeing primarily ourselves and our various reactions to God’s words and God’s actions as the point of the parable.

When we take our focus off the ground and place it on the sower where it belongs, we are forced to be less egocentric and less concerned about how we, or anyone else reacts to the word of God. Paying attention to the parable rather than to the interpretation enables us to see the wanton extravagance of God and God’s confidence that God’s word – spread without thought and without restraint will land on good soil, will take root and will produce abundantly.

The challenge of today’s gospel is to stop navel-gazing and to turn our attention outwards to the boundless, senseless, heedless profligacy of God.  

[1] There are more technical reasons to believe that the interpretation is a later addition, in particular the fact that the structure of the interpretation does not match the structure of the parable.

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No wriggle room

July 13, 2019

…

Pentecost 5 – 2019

Luke 10:25-37 (some thoughts)

Marian Free

In the name of God who asks that we be bound by the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. Amen.

When it comes to paying taxes there are both individuals and corporations who will do everything possible to minimize the amount that they pay. We are informed that billion dollar companies and the extremely wealthy find so many loop holes in the tax laws that they are able to avoid paying the amount of tax that their incomes would seem to suggest. Both individuals and companies are able find ways to reduce their incomes (at least on paper) or to funnel their income into off-shore accounts making it possible to be taxed on figure much lower than their actual incomes. While the very rich pay very little tax, few people on low incomes have the resources to recoup any of their expenditure. It is not that those on high incomes are breaking the law, it is that they know how to use the law to their advantage. By keeping within the limits of the law they ensure that their vast incomes benefit only themselves and they deny the community at large the infrastructure, welfare and other programmes that taxes are levied to support.

There are all kinds of examples of people who use the law to their own advantage or who interpret the ‘letter of the law’ in such a way that they go so far and no further. For example an employer who scrupulously pays award wages but who subtly makes unreasonable demands of his or her employees that are difficult to quantify and harder to challenge. Or the politician who makes extravagant use of their parliaments allowances but always ensures that such use fits (if only narrowly) within the criterion laid down for such claims. Such persons often allow themselves to feel a certain smugness and self righteousness, after all they are doing nothing more or nothing less than the law allows.

I wonder about the lawyer in today’s gospel. It is clear that he knows the law, but he seems to want to know if there is any wriggle room, any way he can limit the effect of the law on his life. Surely, he seems to be thinking, there must be boundaries on neighborliness, definitions that restrict the people whom one is required to love, or criteria for determining who must be loved and who can be refused that love. Just as the modern day tax laws spell out the exact conditions under which a person must pay tax and the specific consequences of failing to observe the tax law, so the lawyer is hoping that Jesus can provide him with the legislative detail that will enable him to find the loopholes that will narrow down the number of people whom he must love ‘as he loves himself’. He seems to be looking for a way in which he can observe the minimum requirements of the law, a way which will cause him the least inconvenience and yet guarantee him the same return – eternal life.

Jesus’ response is to challenge the lawyer’s view of the law. The parable of the Good Samaritan does not answer the lawyer’s question. It does not tell the lawyer what he wants to know, nor does it refine the definition of neighbour (except indirectly). Instead, it tells the lawyer how a good neighbour should behave and it confronts stereotypes relating to goodness (‘Jews are good and Samaritans are bad’). The parable does not provide a direct answer to the lawyer’s question, but it does expose the limitations of the law, the law’s inability to cover every circumstance relating to neighbourliness and the dangers of trying to protect oneself by observing the letter of the law rather than trying to come to grips with the spirit of the law.

As Paul points out in the letter to the Galatians (5:23) it is impossible to create laws to govern love, joy, peace, patience and so on.

In the end our relationship with God informs and directs our relationships with one another. Our love for God and our understanding of God’s love for us gives us the tools to determine how to interpret the law (secular and religious). Guided by God’s expansiveness and generosity of spirit, God’s compassion and tolerance and God’s inclusive and all-embracing love we come to understand that keeping the letter of the law might be to our benefit but that it will not benefit anyone else, it might protect us from harm, but it will limit and stunt our growth and that it will keep us inward-looking rather than outward looking. Love of God and love of neighbor cannot be nearly categorized and defined, but must be informed by God’s intention that lies behind the law.

The lawyer’s question does not evidence a desire to know, but a desire to justify his own selfishness and an unwillingness to be put out. Jesus will not indulge him by giving him the easy way out. Neither will Jesus indulge us. There are no simple solutions, no quick fixes and certainly no wriggle room. If we are to inherit eternal life, we must give our all and cede our all so that the law of God (whatever that may be) may be worked out in our lives and in our actions.

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