From time to time
we hear about “good Samaritans,” individuals performing unusual acts of
kindness – assisting a motorist with a problem on the highway, rescuing someone
from a burning building, donating an anonymous gift to someone in need.
But in our
increasingly secularized society, fewer people know where the good Samaritan
concept began. Spoiler alert: It’s from the Bible.
Luke 10:25-37
tells about Jesus’ encounter with religious leaders that challenged Him. One leader,
“an expert in the law,” cited the commandment to “love your neighbor as
yourself” and then asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the
story of the good Samaritan.
In the account,
robbers had beaten a man on the highway between Jerusalem and Jericho. Two Jewish
leaders of high standing – a priest and a Levite – saw the injured man, but instead
of stopping to help, moved to the other side of the road and continued on their
way.
It was a
Samaritan – a man from Samaria – who not only stopped to assist the injured
person and tend to his wounds, but also found a place where he could stay and
recover. Hence, the good Samaritan.
 |
| In one respect, the story of the good Samaritan is about the evils of racism and prejudice. |
But there’s an
element to this story many people don’t grasp: At least in one respect, it’s
about racism. In those days there was intense animosity between Jews and
Samaritans on ethnic, cultural and religious grounds. The Samaritans, whose
origins traced to the same Jewish lineage, had intermarried with Gentiles to
create a mixed race, greatly despised by the Jews.
So when Jesus noted
two of the Jewish elite had taken “the high road” rather than get involved in a
victim’s plight, and instead it was a hated Samaritan who performed the act of
compassion, it must have stung Christ's confronters.
Had Jesus told
this parable in modern terms, it might have been a black man that stopped to
assist a wounded Ku Klux Klan member. Talk about turning prejudice upside-down.
Some years ago I
was meeting with a young African-American man in a Bible study and he asked,
“Bob, if Jesus were to appear and stand in front of me, would He see a black
man?” What a great question!
Thankfully, I had
recently been doing some reading related to this subject, so we looked at
Galatians 3:28, which states, “There is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus.” As the apostle Paul
pointed out, God does not distinguish according to race, ethnicity, gender or
social standing.
I also related to my friend what
the Old Testament says about how God does see people: “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the
outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
In the gospel of John, Jesus demonstrated
His opposition to the racism of His day in another way. He and the disciples
were passing through Samaria, and Jesus defied cultural norms by talking to a
Samaritan
woman – the "woman at the
well" – and asking her for a cup of water. In fact, the woman expressed
her own astonishment. “You are a Jew and
I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (John 4:9).
This encounter might not seem
like a big deal today, but in Jesus’ day – both in terms of race and gender –
it was unprecedented.
We find ourselves in an
environment more racially charged than it’s been in years, but it doesn’t have
to be that way. Prejudice means to pre-judge, usually according to external
factors: skin color, race, gender, tall or short, slender or stocky. But that’s
not how God sees people. He looks at the heart – the persons we are on the
inside.
As followers of Christ – female
or male, white, black, Asian, Hispanic or whatever – we need to ask the Lord
for His discernment so that we no longer “look at the outward appearance” but as
He did, “look at the heart.”
No comments:
Post a Comment