Samaritan's deed challenges prejudices

July 15, 2007 -- 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Fr. Michael Stubbs

	Fr. Mike Stubbs

Once, when driving past a state prison, I noticed a road sign warning drivers not to stop for hitchhikers. Evidently, the sign reflected a concern about prisoners wandering away from the confines of the prison. At best, if they were able to hitchhike a ride, it would help them in their escape. At worst, if they were violent criminals, they might do harm to their driver.

It is not a good idea to offer a ride to a hitchhiker, even when you are not near a state prison. It is too dangerous. On the other hand, some people wonder if driving past someone in need ignores the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan. We will hear that parable in Sunday's gospel reading, Luke 10:25-37.

We all know the story. A man beat up by thieves and left for dead lies on the side of the road. A priest and a Levite pass him by, without stopping to help. Finally, the Samaritan stops and cares for him.

We should note that the priest and the Levite run no risk of any danger to themselves if they were to stop and help the man out. He is obviously incapable of any harm, unlike the hitchhiker standing beside the road. So the situations are not parallel. Stopping to help would involve some inconvenience, but no chance of any danger to their lives. They would lose some time, perhaps incur ritual impurity if the man turned out to be dead, but that's all.

In any case, the original purpose of the parable does not focus attention upon our own behavior. Instead, scholars argue that Jesus told the parable to his Jewish audience to challenge their prejudices about their enemies. The parable points out how the person we least expect might help us out. It shatters our prejudices about who might, and might not, come to our aid.

A Jewish audience would expect a priest or a Levite to come to the aid of a fellow Jew. On the other hand, they would never anticipate such a thing from a Samaritan, one of their hated enemies. It is difficult for us to appreciate the level of antagonism between Samaritans and Jews at the time of Jesus. A Jewish audience would have looked upon the Samaritan as a likely candidate for one of the bandits, rather than a care giver. When the parable plays out the other way around, it turns their world upside down.

Jesus' parable would have dealt the Jewish audience a slap in the face. On the other hand, once the parable began to be repeated later on to Gentile audiences, it would lose that shock value. A Gentile audience would not have reacted to the Samaritan the same way.

At the same time, the kind, generous deed of the Samaritan would remain in the story as a model for the audience to follow. Instead of surprising the audience and challenging their prejudices about a hated ethnic group, the parable would hold up the action of the Samaritan as an example to imitate.

With the switch from a Jewish to a Gentile audience, the parable acquires new meaning. That ability to grow in meaning attests to the vitality of the parable. It is part of the living word of God.

(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)