Jesus chooses as the hero of the parable a person who his listeners would have detested, with a visceral, palpable hate. As Dr. Pitre points out in his video, the Samaritans were enemies of the Jews, considered beneath the pagans in their eyes. If we remember last week, John and James ask Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven upon a Samaritan town that wouldn't receive them. Jesus rebukes them. We know from John's Gospel account that a Samaritan woman would be His instrument through which her town, who did permit Jesus to enter, would receive the Good News. In Acts some of the disciples are forced into Samaria after Stephen's martyrdom, which kicked off a time of persecution in Jerusalem. As a result of this unplanned missionary journey, many in that region were brought into the Church. So, Jesus had a plan for them, and it wasn't destruction.
When I was a kid it was pretty common for teachers and preachers to explain the shock that the original listeners would have had listening to this parable by substituting the name Samaritan with Russian or Iranian. It was the Cold War, and we and Soviet Russia were rivals for global domination - at least ideologically, if not territorially. 1979 and '80 was the time of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, when 52 Americans were held prisoner in Tehran. The crisis lasted 444 days, and was a low point in national moral. I think more than the Russian analogy, the Iranian one hit home. We felt the they really were our enemy because it was personal. There were fellow citizens being held against their will in a far away land which was calling for America's death. We never saw crowds of Russians on the streets of Moscow calling for America's destruction. If anything, we were taught to look at the Russian people as victims of communist government. We may not have trusted the Soviets, and enjoyed beating them in the Olympics, but we hated the Iranians, at least for a time.
Today I don't know which foreign group I would substitute for Samaritan in order to drive home the point that we are to treat everyone in need, not matter their nationality or religion, as a neighbor. We still have questionable relations with Iran, current treaties not withstanding. As a general rule, do we hate Iranians? I don't think so. Do we hate North Koreans? We may think their leader is a nut, but like the Russians of old, we feel pity for the people there, not hatred. Do we despise Muslims en masse? I'm not sure about that. There are people who hate Muslims because they are Muslims, I'm not denying that. There are more, probably, who may not trust them, again as a group, but if they ran into an individual Muslim in distress would probably help. I'd be surprised, though if there was wide spread hate in the land, even toward immigrants. I'm not saying that discrimination doesn't exist, and that there aren't ignorant people out there, just that I don't think it rises to the level of the mutual hate between Samaritans and Jews. The challenge right now is not that we need to be reminded that people living half way around the world are our neighbors. We need to remember that the people living next door to us are our neighbors.
We are living in a time of domestic division. We are separated by our politics, by class distinctions and by race. We might need to call this parable the Story of the Good Republican, or Democrat. Maybe the Good Black Lives Matter Activist, or the Good Police Officer, depending on what side of the protest line you're standing on. They haven't been in the news lately, but how about Good Occupy Wall Streeter, or the Good Banker? All these opposed groups have real differences, and mention of their label will raise the ire of their adversaries. I'm not suggesting that its just a matter of joining hands and singing some banal anthem. There is work to be done, but its not going get done if we continue to look at each other as enemies. We need to first see that we are neighbors. We need to embrace fellowship in Christ.
Again, accepting Christ alone will not heal these divisions automatically. But Jesus gives us a certain common ground, a transcendent fellowship. Fellowship in Christ gives us a point of departure and return: a path to unity. We have tried the political, economic and ideological routes. They have brought us polarization, a clear sign of the Enemy's hands at work. Consciously or not we have embraced what Fulton Sheen would have called fellowship in anti-Christ. We need to embrace fellowship in Christ Jesus, and allow Him to join us together as something even more than neighbors: He will make us sisters and brothers.
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