Who is my neighbor? | Follow-up to No Kings Events

I'm home from a great trip to Scotland. I'll have some photos coming, especially from an amazing exhibit on photography and resistance movements. For now I'm trying to get on the East Coast time zone and to get plenty of rest to recover from all my travels.

-Liz

Who is my neighbor?

Who is my neighbor? The story of the good Samaritan addresses the most basic of Jesus’ messages—who are we do care for?

I want to read this story as being about caring for the immigrant, for the prisoner, for those being deported, for those who are poor, for those who may be losing their health care, for trans people seeking safety and health care. And certainly all of these people are my neighbor, and I am called to love all of them.

However, it is very convenient to find that the scripture is basically telling me that I am a good person, and all those other people, the ones disagreeing with me, they are the bad people. I’d love if the Samaritan is me, and the priest and Levite are “them”.

And yet, I don’t think the point of scripture is to work like that. It is in fact self-righteousness, and a strict interpretation of their faith that keep the Levite and priest for recognizing their obligations in this story. To find myself righteous, and others unrighteous puts me firmly in the wrong characters of the tale.

Samaritans in Jesus time were not some foreigner or interesting outsider. The Jews and the Samaritans were once a single people, following the same God out of Egypt. They split over interpretations of the faith. In 2 Kings 17 they must be taught to worship correctly, in Ezra 4 they are not allowed to help with the Temple Reconstruction. The Babylonian Exile was a time of fine-tuning the faith story of those who were deported, and they return to the holy lands with a newly edited text, new traditions, and a disdain for the Samaritans who remained in the older form of the faith. That is, the man in the ditch is helped by someone who follows the same God, but in very different ways.

So who is my Samaritan? Who has the same faith as I do, and yet follows their faith in a way that, for me, is the wrong way?

In todays terms, if preaching in a mainline or progressive Christian church, Jesus would have suggested that a Christian Nationalist, or a Fundamentalist, or an Evangelical, or Christian Republican member of congress might stop and help me when I am suffering.

And like the hearer of this story, I’d be likely to scoff. I mean, they’ve shown, as a group, that they don’t want to care for people in need. How can they be the good neighbor in this story. For sure, I don’t want them to be the good guy in any story. The fact is these people follow my same faith, and yet are so different in their interpretations I don’t recognize them as “one of us”.

I presume that if I were the person in the ditch, left for dead, I’d accept the help of whoever offered it. I am certain if Jesus shared this story with me, I, like the expert in the law in this story, would probably say my neighbor is “the one who shows mercy” rather than admitting that “those people” could be my neighbor. The real test, however, is whether I will help a person in need. I hope that I will.

Who is your Samaritan? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening. ​
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Indivisible is offering three one-hour trainings in strategic non-cooperation. This One Million Rising event is online July 16, 30, and August 13 (attend all three) from 8-9pm Eastern Time.

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"The train of change is coming fast in my hometown." I was visiting Scotland with Kate Campbell, a favorite singer-songwriter of mine. She writes songs about growing up in Alabama during the civil rights era.

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