New Approaches To The Good Samaritan

I have been thinking a lot about The Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. Often forgotten is the conversation that surrounds the giving of the parable. That section of Luke begins with a teacher asking Jesus how one enters eternal life. Jesus responds with The Two Greatest Commandments. The teacher of the law isn't satisfied, and Jesus then gives the parable.

It is important to note that the very idea of a Samaritan being 'good' would've been an oxymoron if Jesus' time and place. Talking about a good and kind Samaritan would be like talking about a good and kind crack dealer today. Jesus has the un-savable person act righteously. The saved people would've been the Jews in the story: the man who was hurt and those who passed him by.

I think now that what bothered Jesus was the teacher's focus on being saved. It is like Jesus changes the parameters of religious morality. Instead of asking how one gets saved, Jesus wants us to ask the simple question: "who is suffering?" Our focus as Christians should not be heaven, but the alleviation of the pain of the other.

An extra layer: St. Augustine saw this parable as one that is about us. We are the beaten and lost man, found and loved by Christ Jesus. But the Samaritan is the one who is outside salvation. What if we are the Samaritan, and Jesus is the hurt man? What if the whole story is really a challenge to focus not on our own sufferings "but the sufferings of God in the world" (Bonhoeffer)? In God's suffering, in the suffering of the one who is truly saved, we get an opportunity for infinite friendship with God. Perhaps we also gain the opportunity to share in His salvation. But the main thing is simply our concern for the pain of God. People often think that saving souls is the only thing that matters...what could be of more import than this? In point of fact, the daily crucifixion of God would be infinitely more important than petty concerns about my own ultimate fate.

And even if salvation-by-faith types are right, concern for God's pain would still be the door to salvation. For how could one who cared not for such matters in any way claim to love God?

Secondary thought: what about the parable from a radical Pauline perspective a la Paula Eisenbaum? In this case the suffering of Jesus gives the unsaved and the lost, the Gentiles, the opportunity to share in the salvation of the Jews by caring for the hurt and broken Divine One in the form of the crucified Jew.