Eternal Life for the Good Samaritan?

Good Samaritan by Vincent van Gogh

Pondering Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan this week (the lectionary Gospel for next Sunday, July 14: Luke 10:25-37), I have found focusing on the context is as radical and essential as the story itself. My reflections here are not intended as a Bible study or basis for a sermon but to stimulate my own deeper probing of this very familiar story and to invite any who are interested to soak in it long enough to probe comfortable presuppositions.

The lawyer who asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life was not a sincere seeker but looked to test Jesus and trap him into invalidating his teaching and ministry. Jesus immediately turned the test back on the lawyer. “What do you read in the Law?” When the lawyer answered, “Love God and love your neighbor.” Jesus not only confirmed his answer but switched roles from the one being tested to the one proctoring the test of the lawyer’s qualifications for eternal life. This seems to have made the lawyer immensely uncomfortable, so seeking to justify himself and pass Jesus’ test, asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

This prompted Jesus to tell what we know as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. At its conclusion Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which one was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The lawyer apparently couldn’t bring himself to say “the Samaritan,” so he answered Jesus, “the one who showed him mercy.”

Then Jesus spoke this profoundly radical directive, “Go and do likewise,” clearly implying that was the answer to the lawyer’s original question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Like most (but perhaps not all) of Jesus’ parables, the Good Samaritan is probably a fiction story Jesus told to make an important point. Yet, it begs the question, would such a real life Samaritan inherit eternal life by showing mercy to someone who was suffering and a victim of violence, even though his theology and worship were faulty at best?

Springing from deep roots in ancient Israel, for two millennia the Church has debated how to define the boundaries of who is in and who is out, in other words who do we think will inherit eternal life. I won’t rehearse to affirm or condemn that history, only observe that the process is with us today. I hear and read plenty of versions of “You can’t be a real Christian unless you believe … (fill in the blank with your favorite shibboleth, litmus test, or creedal affirmation).”

In my circles, the frequent boogieman is “works righteousness” as a rejection of what gets labeled as the “social gospel,” Please understand that I know that we do not “earn our way to heaven” by doing good works. But I am also increasingly convinced that we do not gain entrance into heaven by having all of our theology in correct order or answering correctly how it is that believing that Jesus’ death and resurrection is the entrance exam. Not only in this parable but throughout his teaching, Jesus never seems to give the sort of doctrinal exams that we (not just in our time) seem to be so prone to. To me, this parable does not seem to suggest that the Good Samaritan earned his way into eternal life by caring for the wounded traveler. Rather, the Good Samaritan was living a life of mercy, which then became his natural response when he encountered someone in need.

Jesus’ consistent call was, “follow me.” More and more I am recognizing that as accompanying Jesus on a journey characterized by love and mercy, peace and justice. I am not anxious about whether I am doing that well enough to qualify for eternal life, but confident that by staying close to Jesus, he has already welcomed me in which I anticipate will continue in some mysterious and wonderful way when I come to the conclusion of this life and on the last day.

Thanks to Jesus’ story, “Samaritan” has taken on positive, affirmative connotations. May ministries and programs of compassion incorporate it into their name and mission: hospitals, homeless shelters, hospices, addiction rehabilitation, refugee settlement. In Bible study and sermon we acknowledge that Jesus chose to make a Samaritan the protagonist of his story because of the offensive shock value it would have on his hearers. The Roman occupiers were written off as hopelessly pagan, godless oppressors, but the Samaritans practiced a perverted version of theology and worship with the same roots as the Jews, thus were a much greater threat to religious purity than the Romans. The Samaritans were also rejected as having contaminated to racial and ethnic purity of the descendants of Abraham. We know this but when we think about the Good Samaritan, we have warm, affirmative emotions, not at all like the bristly offense that Jesus’ story certainly evoked from his original audience.

Over the years preachers and commentators have endeavored to capture that sense of outrage in contemporary context. In his “Cotton Patch” series of the late 1960s, Clarence Jordan was retelling Jesus’ stories for white, Southern, church people. He chose to cast Jews as “white folk” and Samaritans as “Negros,” and Jordan took a lot of criticism for that.

Again, not to postulate a teaching but to ponder how might Jesus have cast the Samaritan if he were telling to story to church going, morally upstanding, theologically sound people in the US today. What character would evoke from us the same outrage today, to us, that making a Samaritan the guide to the path of eternal life did in Jesus’ day? Two ideas have circulated in my thoughts about this passage this week.

First, undocumented immigrants. They are a flash point of great contention in our society right now. Though possibly not all that educated or sophisticated in their faith, many if not most coming from Latin America would identify themselves as Christians, usually with Roman Catholic roots. How would you respond if the role of the Samaritan was an undocumented Honduran who practiced mercy, knowing that he/she had received desperately needed mercy to escape violence back home?

Second, Muslim neighbors. They too, are the object of plenty of derision and fear and controversy. Though they share roots in the call of Abraham, their faith is much farther from Christian theology than even the difference between Latin American Catholics and Evangelical Protestants. Can you imagine Jesus casting a Muslim who practiced mercy in the role of the Samaritan? I expect that by even asking the question I will provoke some hostility and anger. I have been considering if such a reaction reflects the responses Jesus may have gotten from his audience.

Again, not proposing an answer but searching my own heart in relationship to Jesus, I ask what is necessary to inherit eternal life. Even with faulty theology and worship, does Jesus affirm inheriting eternal life by showing mercy to someone who is suffering?