Samaritan & Judgment

Jay conducted the meeting.

Jay: Last week we were looking at parables dealing in some way with judgment – the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the tares, and the Good Samaritan. If the latter two are both about judgment, we ought to be able to discern some similarities among them. The parables are:

(1) The Parable of the Weeds – Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

…

Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

(2) The Parable of the Good Samaritan – Luke 10:25-37

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

[Jay commented that he would have expected the lawyer to choose ritual things such as “Keep the Sabbath,” etc., but instead, he went straight to the Mosaic law]

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

What are the similarities between these two parables – if any? There seems to be more contrast than similarity.

David: I see a glaring contrast between the injunction to intervene, in the case of the Samaritan parable; and the injunction not to intervene, in the case of the Wheat. In any case, the Wheat parable seems a poor choice, given that farmers through the ages have known that it is better to weed so that the weeds do not choke out the wheat and therefore the harvest.

Robin: It seems to me that the Wheat parable is about God’s responsibility. The Samaritan parable is about our responsibility as human beings to show love and mercy.

Alice: I don’t see the Samaritan parable to be a judgment parable. Its lesson is that all we have to do is to love; not to judge, not to distinguish. The victim in the Samaritan parable could well be an evil person himself, for all we or the Samaritan know. But that is not our business. It is our business to love; it is God’s business to judge.

Harry: This parable was delivered in the historical context not only of Jewish zealots fighting the Roman overlords but also of Jewish priests oppressing and taxing their own people, As a result of all this, many Jews were starving to death. The priests in the Good Samaritan story do nothing to help. The Samaritan is half-Jewish, half-Arab, yet it is he who does the good deed. So the parable to the audience at the time would have been seen as an appeal to change the religious system. In asking “Who is my neighbor” the lawyer was probably hoping to hear Jesus reply: “Those who follow the law – the Jews.” But of course, Jesus had a very different message. So it was not an “End Time” judgment parable, but a contemporary “judge the Jews” parable.

Don: I am struck by the fact that in both parables there is a certain helplessness on the part of the “actors.” The wheat and the tares, the Samaritan, the priests, the victim [and even the thieves who attacked the victim? – DE] are what they are and can’t help being what and where they are. There is no sense that either the wheat or the victim have deserved what happened to them.

David: I have warmed to Alice’s explanation, and I note that in the parable of the Good Samaritan there is no mention of judgment for the robbers – the only issue on the table is that of having care and compassion for their victim.

Harry: The Devil who planted the tares was not a fallen angel at the time of Jesus. Lucifer fell several hundred years later, around the time of Constantine. So who was causing the problems with the tares? If you don’t know who the enemy is, and if wheat and tares are hard to distinguish one from the other, how can we know what to do?

Don: The idea of a victim is important in the area of judgment. Is salutary judgment something a victim should have a right to expect? Should lower forms of intelligence, of life, receive harsher judgment? The cockroach has no choice, no free will, in being a cockroach, just as the victim in the Good Samaritan had no choice in the matter of being robbed, or the lost sheep had no choice about being taken back to the flock. Does “victim-ness” factor into judgment? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about the first being last and the last being first; the Beatitudes also suggest that victims will be more favored than even the compassionate helper.

Jay: What this tells me is that what we think we know, we don’t.

Harry: I agree. There are people who are born ignorant, and they generally live worse lives than those who are not so born. Helpers generally come out of the less ignorant classes, but they are les favored than the ignorant in terms of judgment and grace and mercy. Helping the oppressed is the right thing to do but it still does not raise you above the oppressed.

Robin: What was the distinction between the priest and the Levite in the GS parable? And why did they not help the victim?

Jay: The bloodied and dirty victim lying in the ditch would have been ritually unclean from the perspective of a contemporary Jewish priest. To touch him would have been to be defiled.

Harry: Exactly – Jesus was saying in this parable that it was the Jewish religion that was the problem. And nothing has changed – on Facebook, there is no shortage of right-wing, White hate offered in the name of God and even of Christ.

Jay: A major similarity between these two parables is that the tares are things that cause people to sin, to stumble. Tares are things like fear, pride, and selfishness. The priest and the Levite and their religious beliefs were stumbling blocks to understanding the extremist message of Jesus. Jews and Samaritans hated one another, yet here was Jesus telling the audience that the Samaritan was the one to follow, not the priests.

Harry: The tares are the Mosaic law and the prophets. We are known by our actions, not by our beliefs.

Robin: But it is what we believe that results in our actions, and our belief can be skewed. Pure religion is demonstrated in what we do that is Christ-like.

Jay: The question then becomes: What is Christ-like?

David: I don’t believe that the God of the Old Testament is real. The messages, the parables, of Jesus are not and need not be complex. In the Good Samaritan, the simple, fundamental message is about being… a Good Samaritan! It is about how we should be and behave.

Rimon: How you interpret what you believe shows in your actions. So two people reading and believing in the same Bible may still act differently.

Francine: I know many people who have never used the Bible as their source of belief and yet are wonderful people, as demonstrated by the kind and considerate way they treat others.

Alice: The point that deserves emphasis is not the example of how to love or who is my neighbor; we should emphasize how to love God, in order to know how to enter the Kingdom.

Harry: How does one love God? What’s the definition of loving God? In my opinion, God is not looking for adoration; he is looking for our action.

Alice: This was the lawyer’s question in the parable. If he had focused on loving God, he would have known who was his neighbor.

Emma: We are taught to love God as children, and we are taught to pray every night before we go to bed.

Alice: But that’s not love. It’s teaching.

Emma: Yes, but one learns from what one is taught. Many people know – have heard about or have been taught about – Jesus, but do not believe in him.

Alice: There is a difference between knowing someone and loving someone. We read the Bible, we know its content, but we don’t experience the feeling, the emotion, the love. Yet that experience comes naturally to every baby and every mother. Love is a natural feeling that exists quite independently of the Bible or knowledge of it.

Robin: That comes from God’s spirit inside us. To the extent we love anyone or anything (e.g., money) then to that extent we tend to acquire its traits. So if we love the spirt of God in us, then we are likely to become more like it.

Alice: The servants in the Wheat are like the Levite and the priest—they know God, but they do not love him. The Samaritan and the Sower both loved God.

Emma: Human love is emotional; God’s is not – it is solid, a fact, a reality – it is not a feeling. We don’t really understand God or his love. We try to visualize it through emotion. If my son went out and murdered someone, I would not stop loving him.

Alice: We are commanded to love God. The only way we know how to do that is the way we love our loved ones. We cannot fear him and love him at the same time.

Harry: I love people and animals in a way that I cannot say I love God. I cannot find an emotional connection with God. But I can see that he loves me, and I can reciprocate by trying to emulate that love in my behavior to others. I can say I love mankind with all my heart, but I cannot say I love God with all my heart.

Robin: You show your love when you “Do unto the least of these….”

Ghada: When you show love to others, you are showing your love to God.

Don: The priest and the Levite seem to behave precisely out of what they must  perceive as their love for and obedience to God and his strictures to them not to become defiled, etc.. So what’s being questioned is our ability to make the judgment of whether we are acting on behalf of God. Whether our behavior is instinctive or taught, the counsel in the Wheat is: Don’t interfere – you will do more harm than good. This seemed to be the message the priest and the Levite also understood (as a result of their learning.) So there is something deeper going on in these parables than is apparent on the surface.

Jay: On that note, we will end the meeting.

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Post-meeting chat:

Don: In light of David’s email about where animals fit into the Kingdom: It seems that the more free will we have, the more at risk we seem to be. There seems to be a heavenly premium on innocence, and also an inverse relationship between the power of our free will and our ability to be saved. In Gethsemane, in confronting his impending crucifixion Jesus says “Let thy will be done” – it’s an abrogation of his own free will.

David: Perhaps loving cockroaches [creatures with less free will power than we possess, creatures more ignorant and innocent than we are] with all one’s heart is more Godlike than loving all mankind with all one’s heart!

Don: Grace seems to be independent of free will.

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