A man was walking through Radford when he fell among a gang of thieves, who stripped him of his goods and his clothing, beat him and departed, not caring if he were alive or dead. Now along that road came a priest who, being very busy with visiting and other duties, passed by on the other side of the street. Similarly a local MP also came along the road and, seeing the man gave him a wide berth and hurried on by to his rather important council meeting. But a young black man, dripping with gold and as cool as you like, came by and when he saw him he was overcome with compassion and rushed to his side. He bound his wounds pouring on water; he dressed him in his expensive jacket and called an ambulance. He travelled with him to the hospital, bought him some toiletries and nightwear and once he was settled and in safe hands he went on his way, leaving his mobile number with the staff. The next day he called at the hospital and spent several hours by his bedside talking to him and offering comfort. He brought magazines and fruit and asked the staff to call him if the man should awake and require anything.
I chose to base this assignment on the Good Samaritan because despite 2000 years of evolution I think the question of ‘Who is my neighbour?’ remains a relevant and thought provoking one. We live in an increasingly multi-cultural, multi-faith society. We rub up against all kinds of people in our daily work and personal lives. Are any of these people our neighbour? Are all of these people our neighbour? What is a neighbour anyway? These questions I believe are answered by Jesus in the telling of the ‘Good’ or ‘Compassionate Samaritan’. At the time of the original parable Jews and Samaritans did not mix, they lived separately, worshipped separately and did not intermarry. The Jews hated and despised the Samaritans and in our modern world there are a number of people groups who feel the same way about each other. Racism, fascism and several other ‘isms’ are rife in a society that sees terrorists and infiltrators on every corner. As society has grown to accommodate people of other races we have become more suspicious and more possessive of our territory and identity. Far from being a whole and integrated, unified society we are instead fragmented, huddled in our familiar groups hardly daring to step beyond what we consider to be the norm. What did the parable mean to Jesus’ hearers when first they heard it? Does it still have relevance today or do we need to re-interpret it for a new age?
According to Snodgrass (2000) there have been a number of different approaches to interpreting the meaning of the parables. The use of allegory was popular for a time but was at least partly replaced by methods that relied more on the actual text and the cultural and historical settings. Others have taken a literary approach and yet others an artistic one. Drane (1999, p123) points out the dangers of using only one method when he discusses Augustine’s allegorical retelling of ‘The Good Samaritan’. According to Drane, Augustine re-labels every element of the story, from Jerusalem to the two coins, to come up with ‘an ingenious account’ of his understanding of salvation which bears little connection to the original story. In the assessment of Keesmaat (2000) there is also a danger in adopting only a contextual approach to understanding the parables. In focussing too closely on what the message for Jesus’ listeners was we can miss what the story has to say to us today. Drane (1999, p138) agrees stating that ‘the real meaning of the parables must always be bound up with the challenge they bring to those who read or hear them’. He goes on to say that the parables ‘are an invitation into new territory, an opportunity to re-imagine the world as we know and experience it, in the light of Jesus’ portrayal of God’s character’.
Julicher (1899) suggests that the parables are simply tools used by Jesus to illustrate a point. In the parable of the Good Samaritan the point is that the person who proved to be a real neighbour was not a religious Jew, but a member of a despised social group. The rest is just scene setting. Keesmaat (2000, p263) contends that only using the given context is a ‘safe’ way to read the parables since it ‘ensures that engagement between a text and its context do not become uncomfortably close to our own world’. It would seem then that the parables benefit from a multi-layered approach to interpretation.
Keesmaat (2000 p265) maintains that the parables of Jesus function to challenge the prevailing worldview so that understanding what a parable meant to Jesus’ hearers helps us to understand what it might mean for us today. With that in mind she places the parable firmly in the context of the questions asked by the lawyer and points out that Jesus turns the questions and his listeners expectations upside down, thus getting to the heart of the issue and making an impact (p276). Jesus takes the question of ‘who is my neighbour?’, and leaves his hearers and the questioner in no doubt that it is not simply about being a neighbour to the despised but that the lawyer should ‘allow an enemy to become a neighbour to him … [and] that he is to follow the example of his enemy in learning what it is to be a neighbour’(p282).
As this parable is in answer to a question put to Jesus I believe it to be one of the more straightforward ones and agree with the views expressed above. I am reminded of the wood stain advert whose catchphrase is ‘It does exactly what it says on the tin’. This parable is another insight into the Kingdom of God. It states very clearly that the Kingdom includes people who we may see as unworthy or excluded. It teaches us that anyone in need is our neighbour and that we should allow even those we despise to be neighbours to us.
I chose to retell the parable only, without the interaction between Jesus and the lawyer in this sense it loses a little of the contextual setting. At the beginning of this essay I asked some questions that amount to ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and ‘What is a neighbour anyway?’ these questions are similar to those asked by the lawyer in the Luke passage. In the rewrite I have tried to retain the flavour and meaning of the original but set it in a cultural context easily accessible to a modern day audience this is because I believe the original meanings to have relevance and resonance in our communities and lives today.
Both the original and my interpretation begin with ‘A man’ travelling somewhere. I could as easily written ‘a person’ or ‘a woman’ but chose to keep it simple and have ‘man’ stand in as a representative of the human race. In the original the man was travelling from somewhere to somewhere whereas my ‘man’ is travelling through somewhere. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was renowned for the bandits that roamed out from local villages to supplement meagre incomes with raids on lone travellers (Keesmaat 2000 p278). I set my piece in Radford because that is where I live and because in recent years we have seen several fatal shootings, stabbings and punch-ups. There is a dark underbelly to Radford that occasionally leaks out to touch our everyday lives. In both versions the man is set upon by thieves, who strip him and leave him for dead. Nothing else is said about the ‘man’, his importance is only as a victim and recipient of care.
Next along come the passers-by. In the original they are religious leaders, a priest and a Levite, both of whom would have had serious concerns about being contaminated by spilled blood or possibly even by handling a corpse. Such contamination would make them unable to participate in the temple activities. I chose to interpret this as a priest and an MP, both pillars of the community who gain much from being seen doing and saying the right thing. In a modern context they have no concern about ritual uncleanliness but they do worry about being late or missing important appointments. This is not to say that all priests and MP’s are concerned about these things over and above the needs of a man lying bleeding in a gutter! In the biblical story a Samaritan is next. The Samaritans as has already been discussed were a despised and hated race. Jews and Samaritans did not mix in any social setting and the Samaritans had their own temple separate from the Jews. I chose a black youth dripping in bling, the social stereo-type rap/gangster type person. I could have chosen almost any marginalised and stigmatised social grouping, a Muslim or an alcoholic, or a homeless person or a person with Aids. The list could go on and on. When I was thinking about who to cast as ‘The Good …?’ I became increasingly aware of the number of people society casts as untouchable, undesirable, unlovable. Of course the groupings also depend on ones own point of view, each grouping will have different prejudices to another. Also interesting is those people I didn’t think could fit the role of ‘good’ anything, members of fascist groups for example.
In the original story the Samaritan binds the mans wounds using oil and water, puts him on an animal and books him in at the local Travel Inn, paying for his care and promising remuneration for any further spend. With modern healthcare this would be a strange thing to do so instead, our hero opts for dressing the blood soaked body of the man in his new and expensive coat and calling for an ambulance. The principal remains similar. Neither were unduly worried about contamination of any sort from being hands on in the nitty gritty of life’s horrors. In addition our hero stays with the man on his way to the hospital, buys him some necessities and leaves a contact number should the man require anything else. He returns the next day and continues to offer care and comfort.
I hope that in essence my modern day interpretation of ‘The Good Samaritan’ retains its original meanings and answers the questions of ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and ‘What is a neighbour?’. Who was a neighbour to the man? Not those whom one would expect to fulfil the role but an ‘other’. Someone different, some one marginalised, stereotyped and excluded, someone overlooked by society’s norms, someone – anyone who is prepared to bend down and meet us in our need, and we should do likewise.
References and Bibliography
Drane, John (1999) Introducing The New Testament Oxford, Lion Publishing Plc
Julicher, Adolf (1899) Die gleichnisreden Jesu IN Drane, John (1999) Introducing The New Testament Oxford, Lion Publishing Plc
Keesmaat, Sylvia C (2000) Strange Neighbours and Risky Care. IN Longenecker, Richard N (2000) The Challenge of Jesus’ Parables Wm. b. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Longenecker, Richard N (2000) The Challenge of Jesus’ Parables Wm. b. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Snodgrass, Klyne R (2000) From allegorizing to allegorizing: A history of the interpretation of the parables of Jesus IN Longenecker, Richard N (2000) The Challenge of Jesus’ Parables Wm. b. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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