The classification of a “good” one casts dispersion on all the rest. Very early on, “others” were cast as baddies. It seems like a trend.
Quoting Wikipedia:
Jesus’ target audience, the Jews, hated Samaritans to such a degree that they destroyed the Samaritans’ temple on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans, reciprocally, hated the Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan
Quoting Wikipedia [emphasis mine]:
The Samaritans (/səˈmærɪtənz/; Samaritan Hebrew: ࠔࠠࠌࠝࠓࠩࠉࠌ Šā̊merīm; Hebrew: שומרונים Šōmrōnīm; Arabic: السامريون as-Sāmiriyyūn), often preferring to be called Israelite Samaritans, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of ancient Israel and Judah that comprises the northern half of what is today referred to as the West Bank. They are adherents of Samaritanism, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion that developed alongside Judaism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritans
I dunno. Maybe someone will correct my interpretation. This has been at the edge of my mind for a little while and I’m curious if others agree.
That is kind of the point or the parable, right? But the parable wasn’t ‘othering’ them, it was showing how their background/race/religion/heritage isn’t what made them ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ it’s their actions that matter.
Society at the time already encouraged people to think of Samaritans as the other and to look down on them. The parable tells of an injured, vulnerable traveler in a time of need. Many Jews, members of high society, etc. (people normally thought of as 'good) walk by and ignore the man. A Samaritan passes by and offers aid. Of all the people who walked by, only the Samaritan is worthy of heaven. The moral is that anyone can be a good person by helping others…the kingdom of heaven is open to all, not just the Jews, and that your actions/the way you live your life is more important than what you call yourself, what tribe you belong to, who your parents are.
It’s one of the most basic messages in the Bible. It is clearly anti-racist. It promotes helping others above all else. And somehow modern Christians seem to miss the point completely.
I like your take. Thanks!
I’m pretty anti-theist. However, if religions were just a bunch of ideas on how to live your best life (like this parable) it would be generally fine. The problem is a lesson as simple as “love thy neighbour” fails to make it through because it would undermine the organisation. Without “them” there is no “us”, and without “us” there is no organisation.
I don’t think people consciously take on this “us” / “them” thinking, but they fall into it and it feels safe and comfortable. In this case Jesus was literally telling his followers to do what felt uncomfortable — to help people outside of their own faith. To not let labels get in the way.
Be spiritual. Hold a faith. Just forgoe the organisations that corrupt that faith.
One of lessons of the Bible (from what I gather anyway) is that all humans are corrupt-able and will err. Therefore, all organizations that wield any power at all are subject to human corruption. Indeed, this is how we think of organizations in a secular light.
If you’re looking for the religious teachings or church organizations that are free from the sins they denounce, you won’t find them, because human beings cannot keep themselves from temptation indefinitely.
Adding on, the context of the parable is important. The parable was given in response to a lawyer who asked what was needed to gain eternal life. Jesus flipped it back on him and asked what the law recorded by Moses said. The lawyer replied with, ‘you must love THE LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.’ Jesus replied that was correct, do that and he’d live. But then the lawyer asked who his neighbor was.
The parable was Jesus’s response to the lawyer’s question of who was his neighbor. At the end Jesus asked who the neighbor was in the parable but the lawyer couldn’t bring himself to say the Samaritan. He said the one that showed mercy, which was correct, and Jesus told him to go and do the same. But we could also say from the parable that your neighbor is the person who hates you, your neighbor is the person everyone around you says you should hate, your neighbor is the one with different beliefs from you, your neighbor is every other human. And you should be willing to help your neighbor, take care of your neighbor, give your own money to help your neighbor with no expectation of getting that money back. At the end of the parable the Samaritan gave the innkeeper money to cover the expenses of caring for the robbery victim and said he would pay for any excess when he returned, and with the victim having been robbed there was little chance he would be able to repay the Samaritan.
I’ve long thought this passage is one of the most crucial of Jesus’s teaching, and the majority of people who claim to follow him (or at least the ones who are loudest about it) seem to miss the point entirely and fail to follow the lesson. One can’t embrace being selfish or greedy and be a Christian, it just doesn’t work.