Spectacles and the Jericho Road
Life is a strange old thing, isn’t it? Immanuel Kant wanted to tell us that there is no such thing as an unperceived world (he was right of course, at that point). And there’s no unperceived life—we see it through the lens we’ve inherited from our social/economic/religious or philosophical environment. We like to kid ourselves into thinking that we stand free of presuppositions, that we don’t bring our baggage to our Bible study. Silly isn’t it? F.F Bruce thought that none of us is so tradition bound as those of us that think we have no traditions that affect our thinking. What has this to do with the road to Jericho?
A fine writer, Kenneth Bailey, whose parents spent many years working among the peasants in the Mid-East and who, himself, spent twenty years doing the same, deals with the Good Samaritan story and context. Clearly his history in the Middle East has left its mark on his helpful work on the parables and yet his religious background gives the Luke 10:25-37 section a 16th century setting. He reads it as Christ exposing legalism as if he had been speaking during a Reformed/Roman Catholic debate. The Jewish teacher wanted to know what he had to do in order to gain eternal life and KB makes his talk of doing the crux of the problem. The teacher “was trying to save himself,” we’re told, and Christ exposes that nonsense. [It’s strange that Jesus doesn’t tell the teacher there’s nothing he can do. On the contrary he tells him to “do” more. Read the entire incident for yourself.]
So the entire 1st century Jewish story is read through a Lutheran and Reformed lens. That’s what I meant when I said there is no unperceived life. We are handed religious spectacles (depending on...) and we read scripture through them. It’s spooky to realise that. Some people think that such a thing affects only those linked to religious glasses but there are philosophical, cultural and political glasses as well. There are some who think that such a thing affects only those linked to old traditions—far from it!
Tradition is not the only thing that hands out spectacles. Fads and fashions do the same thing. Shaped by currents and influential people we can jump on the latest bandwagon. “Out with the old—in with the new!” That too can become a mindset and everything is judged in light of it. G.K Chesterton’s shrewd observation is worth recalling. He said democracy has taught us a person’s view should be given respectful consideration even if he/she is only our servant or employee. He went on to say that tradition has taught us that a person’s view should be given respectful consideration even if he/she is only our father or mother.
In the end, there’s no doubt about it, only God can deliver us from our shackles, no matter how or where or by whom they were made.
But reading with my own spectacles on, Luke 10:25-37 doesn’t at all look like a discussion of legalism or self-salvation. It looks to me like a straightforward (but too rich to grasp all) lesson on what love of God and neighbour means and calls for. Here’s a sectarian Jew—one that believed a currently held though disputed viewpoint that God called Israel to love their covenant brothers and sisters and feel no obligation whatever to those outside that circle (compare Luke 6:27-36 and Matthew 5:43-48).
Those that held that view thought that that was how they were to live out “the image of God”. The God they praised in the Shema had loved only Israel, don’t you see; loved only a segment of the human family that he had made so he regarded the rest as his enemies. At least that was what many inferred. Herein lies one of the dangers of thinking that God’s love is restricted to a particular covenantal expression of it.
(Some Jews thought that because God made a covenant exclusively with them that he made Gentiles for no other reason than to stoke the fires of hell. There’s a “Christian” version of that view that says God created the bulk of the human family for no other reason than to subject them eternally to conscious torture. Without wish or choice on their part and by God’s ordaining, they were born enemies, and he will burn them throughout the ceaseless ages “according to the good pleasure of his will.”)
In any case, this Jewish teacher wanted to justify himself—being a good sectarian he had to find good reason to justify his sectarianism (10:29). So he wanted to debate the definition of “neighbour”—in essence, he wanted to know whom he was obliged to love. The commandment to love couldn’t be doubted, but there was room for manoeuvring on the scope of it.
But his doctrine of election was skewed, don’t you know. Life and peace with God was possible only for Jews, he thought! (And later, some Christian Jews insisted on the same thing—see Acts 15:1-2—and so we got the books of Galatians and Romans.) In light of his view of God and the love of God that he saw expressed in Jewish election, and the consequences for the rest of the human family, this Bible teacher implicitly narrowed his obligation to love.
[I read a book some years ago, 300 pages +, that taught us what God took pleasure in. Rich in many ways! We were told that God took pleasure in galaxies, flowers, animals, his chosen number out of humanity, and on and on—but nowhere a word about the pleasure he takes in the entire human family. Well, I found a single sentence and text that were then passed by with nothing more than a disclaimer. I must confess that that’s a stunning absence. The book got rave reviews from many preachers. Hmmm. The Jewish Bible teacher was sectarian because he saw God as sectarian. He narrowed his obligation to love because he thought God had loved narrowly. If God refuses to love Gentiles how can it be right for him to love Gentiles? If God refuses to love the bulk of humanity how can it be right for those who are to live and love in his image love the bulk of humanity? Sectarianism is ugly—Jewish or Christian.]
But Jesus would have none of it. He wouldn’t enter the debate about what “neighbour” meant nor would be debate what might be the consequences of the definition of neighbour. He didn’t deny that God had made a peculiar covenant with Israel, the OT elect, but he flatly denied that God loved only those he covenanted with or only those who loved him. [And should that mean something to us? If so; what?]
In Luke 10 Jesus passed by the debate about the covenantal meaning of the word “neighbour” and asked “who loved?” (10:36). “Which of these people was a lover?” Jesus asked him. The Bible teacher knew it wasn’t the priest or the Levite. Whoever or whatever the man in the road was, the Samaritan loved him and came to his rescue. “If you want life go and do likewise,” said Jesus Christ. [This unnerves many Reformed types. It should unsettle many non-Lutheran types.]
Karl Barth was right. If the Bible teacher had had the heart he would have known he was talking to the cosmic good Samaritan.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
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