The Pope and the Samaritan

Pope Francis reflected on one of everyone’s favorite parables.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of those passages from Scripture that found its way into our living rooms and kitchens.  Even if you know nothing about the Bible, you get the Good Samaritan, even if you miss some of the finer points.

Pope Francis unpacks the need to actually live this parable, rather than just discuss it or reflect on its beauty.  It is a wonderful passage. I wish I could teach like that.  Who doesn’t?   Jesus takes the worst person in the world and tells us to love him.  Love him as we are to love ourselves.  And by love, it’s not some abstract, Haight-Ashbury perversion of a human emotion.  It’s go over, pick the guy up, take care of him and give the cloak and extra mile, even if you have reason to hate the fellow.  And what Samaritan wouldn’t have cause for resentment and hatred toward a first century Jew?

Pope Francis walks us through the parable and emphasizes the importance of living it.  But note well.  He emphasizes actually living it.  Somewhere, and I don’t know where, we seem to have forgotten that it’s how we actually live our life that matters.  It isn’t how we vote, what causes we follow, what ideologies we cling to, or what opinions we have that define us.  They certainly reflect us.  And depending on what we follow, it might suggest that somewhere along the line our lives need a reboot.

Not that political ideas or social theories are bad or pointless to worry about.  Of course they aren’t.  But they don’t define the person.  In fact, as I look around, I can’t help but notice people are far more complex than an election map divided into Red State/Blue State.

Righteousness based on fealty to geopolitical theories and international treaties, rather than how we treat that person sitting next to us in church, is missing the mark.  Or neglecting that coworker who just screwed us out of a promotion.  Or ripping that person who called me out on the internet. Or dismissing that person who actually hates us because of our skin color.  Ouch.  I’d rather my righteousness be based on who I vote for or what my opinions about Iran’s nuclear program happen to be.  That way if I”m wrong, it’s probably someone else who will pay the price anyway.

When my righteousness is based on how I treat people around me first and foremost, that’s when it gets yucky.  I don’t want to love all of them.  I don’t want to forgive them if they wronged me.  Some days I’d rather not be Christian if it means reaching out to them!  But alas, that is the measuring stick against which I will be measured.  I’m sure where I stand on the issues might reflect things in my heart.  But be careful Dave!  Just because others disagree with you doesn’t mean they are inherently wicked or stupid individuals.  That’s the world’s way of arguing.  Why not?  The world has nothing else but it’s own ideologies.  But I have God.

So well said Pope Francis.  I hope we come away from his statements realizing the pathway to being a Good Samaritan doesn’t stop with where I stand on the issue of immigration or civil rights or gun control or global warming.  It begins, if not ends, with how many people I’ve met and actually loved.  How many immigrants have I invited into my house?   If I’m nowhere near immigrants, who am I to tell those who are how to live?  What have I personally don’t for the environment?  Have I decried gun violence under the rhetoric of Raca and Fool?  Go next door to my neighbor first, especially if he screwed me over in a property dispute, and give that cup of cold water.  That’s where I can begin.

Again, this is not the vague, hippy way of love, but the real, honest to goodness, agape way to love.  I can stand on my high horse and decry the wrong thinking about issues like our foreign policy all day long.  But when was the last time I crossed the road to give my all for that fellow who recently shafted me or my family?  I can’t help but think that last question, rather than where I stand on the latest political issue, will be among the first I’m asked when the time comes to meet my Maker.