A Reflection for the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary
Find today’s readings here.
Today’s Gospel reading is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Because the story and its message are so familiar, the word “Samaritan” has lost its sting for today’s audience. But when Jesus told it, it was shocking. The Jews and the Samaritans despised each other.
To hear the story as it must have landed with Jesus’ listeners, it may help to think of yourself as the priest or the Levite, and for “Samaritan,” substitute “drug addict” or “homeless LGBTQ+ teen.”
Heck, let’s dig a little deeper and call it the Parable of the MAGA Bro.
A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Cleveland to Springfield. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A community organizer happened to be going down that road, but when he saw the victim, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a public radio Leadership Circle donor came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a guy driving a neon green Dodge Ram 3500 Mega Cab topped with a tattered Confederate flag and a “Tampon Tim” bumper sticker pulled over and was moved with compassion at the sight . . . Am I trying to annoy you? Yes, I am. Not because I think anti-Trumpers are all hypocrites who would never help a bleeding victim lying, and not because I think all Trump supporters are, deep down, decent people who would absolutely do the right thing; but because the whole point of the story is to unsettle us. If it doesn’t, we’re not hearing it.
Recall what motivates Jesus to tell the story in the first place. A scholar asks him how to inherit eternal life, and Jesus invites him to show he already knows the answer, at least intellectually:
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Then the scholar asks, “Who is my neighbor?” When we ask this question, it’s because we’re trying to exclude someone. “Who is my neighbor?” “Who is a real Catholic?” “Who is a citizen?” “Who is fully human?” These are things we ask when we want an excuse not to care that someone is suffering, or when we want an excuse to kill them.
But the story is a little more subtle than it first seems. We’re familiar with the idea that this parable flips the listener’s comfortable paradigm on its head. Jesus upends people’s expectations, making the Samaritan the good guy, and the priest and the Levite the villains; and the message you could glean is that you can’t assume anything about people, and how a person behaves is far more important than what group they belong to. Even Samaritans can be good! Even [whoever you dislike] can be a hero.
But notice: It’s not just the listener’s assumptions that get challenged. It’s the Samaritan’s, too. He would have had all the same prejudices that the Jews had. It probably would have been culturally acceptable for him to see the bleeding man and go, “Not my problem.” But he didn’t, because the Jew was his neighbor.
And the Haitian immigrant is my neighbor, and the neighborhood MAGA bro is my neighbor. The starving Palestinian child is my neighbor, and the Zionist counterprotestor is my neighbor. The nonbinary barista with the wolfcut mullet is my neighbor, and the bearded Christian nationalist homesteading podcaster is my neighbor.
Whoever I have the impulse to despise, even for the very best of reasons, that’s who Jesus is talking about. If I can think of someone who doesn’t count as my neighbor, then I am not hearing Jesus.
Do I have to like them, or agree with their ideas? No. All I have to do is love them as I love myself.
A tall order. But, like everything else that Jesus asks from us, it’s not something he didn’t first do himself.
Who do you think the Good Samaritan really is? It’s Jesus.
The way we act, he had every reason to despise us, to ignore us, to say, “Ew, a human! Not my problem.” It would have been entirely understandable. But that is not what he did. Sinless and divine, he was the ultimate stranger to humanity, but he decided to love us as he loves himself.
If this story isn't confounding, we're not hearing it.
