Monday 8 June 2009

Here is more from the story of the good Samaritan from "Who Will Be Saved" by William Willimon.

Like most the Scripture, the story of the man in the ditch is a story about God before it is a story about us, about the oddness of our salvation in Christ. I've used this interpretation of the parable of the good Samaritan before, and I can tell you that my congregation didn't like it. They like stories about themselves more than they like to hear stories about God. They are resourceful, educated, gifted people who don't like to be cast in the role of the beaten poor man in the ditch. They would rather be the anything-but-poor Samaritan who does something nice for the less fortunate among us. In other words, they don't like to admit that just possibly they may need to be saved.
Why is this not about us? Doesn't the story end with Jesus saying to his interrogator, "Go and do likewise?" "Go" and "do" what? I'm saying that more difficult even than reaching out to the victim in the ditch (which is hard enough for us) is coming to conceive of yourself as the victim, learning to live as if your one last hope in the Savior whom you tend to despise.

I cannot say that I ever thought of this parable with this important note. It is not a "go and do likewise" story. This is again all about our God and the place in which our God enters to be with us - all of us. There will be no boundary - no "other side of the road" for our God who will be with us to rescue, restore and save. This is not a story that lifts us up onto a moral high road. Anyone can do "good Samaritan" kind of stuff. It is much needed. This is rather about the the way God makes a people by coming to bring us life even though in that coming we are handled and touched and cared for by someone who is not thought of as a 'moral' character. Because of this action by our God, we therefore are brought into the realm of God's Reign and in that reality that is already ours, it is a reality that encompasses all who are lost and left to die...not some...but all. That is a scandalous story. God coming for all - no matter what the good folk would say!?!

Connection: It can be easy to fear those who come to be with us and to fear those outside our pathway. But these are the kind of places in which our God has found us and brought us into the realm of God's healing presence. How will we see and experience the out-of-bounds God within the common elements of today?

When you lift us up, O God, we are made whole and we are reminded of the reality that comes to life as you insist on stopping along the way and leaving no one behind even when you must risk being see as not God at all. Come, Lord, Jesus. Amen.