Re-Thinking the Parable of the Good Samaritan - A Response to the Tim Keller's of the World

Many claim the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches we should be kind to others, regardless of their background.  While this is certainly a laudable sentiment, it is not the main point at all.  Given the lamentable reference to this parable over the years, and particularly right now, I would like to offer the following thoughts.

First, too often, I think people jump right to the parable without understanding the context.  A text without context is a pretext for a proof text.  (Not original with me, but lots of people have said it, so I’m not sure who gets credit!).  We can’t ignore the circumstances that resulted in Jesus telling this parable.

Here’s a brief summary.  Luke 10:25 starts with a teacher of the law asking Jesus how he can inherit eternal life, intending to test Jesus.  Jesus, as typical, asks the teacher what he thinks.  My rough paraphrase: the teacher says love God and love my neighbor.  Jesus tells him he should keep doing this and he will live.  The teacher of the law wants to “justify himself.”  He asks Jesus “who is my neighbor?”  Jesus then tells the familiar parable of a priest and a Levite passing by a wounded man lying on the roadside.  Only a Samaritan is willing to help the man.  In fact, the Samaritan puts himself out significantly to help this stranger.  Jesus then asks the teacher, “which was a neighbor?” The teacher says “the one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus says he is correct and tells the teacher of the law to go and do likewise.

The context of the parable is the question “how do I inherit eternal life” not the question how do I treat other people.  The teacher thinks he already knows the answer, and while he is partly correct, he doesn’t fully understand the implications of his answer.  Too often we focus on the Samaritan and the Jewish belief the Samaritans were “lesser” because they were not of pure Jewish blood.  This is important because Jesus liked to use shocking comparisons in order to make a point.  In context, though, Jesus could have used a shepherd or an Egyptian and the point would have been just as effective.

Let me offer the following shocking possibility for you to consider: you and I are NOT the Samaritan, Jesus is, therefore God is.  I’ll come back to this idea in a moment. 

The word translated justify here is used throughout the New Testament  The discussion is about justification – in other words, how one becomes right with God.  To mute this and turn the parable into a mere directive to treat others nicely is not what Jesus is teaching.  In fact, that devolves into mere moralism.  Moreover, we lose something incredibly important if my understanding is right. 

So what’s going on in the parable then?  Jesus directs the parable to the teacher’s question about justification.  In light of this, one might at first conclude the parable means one should go find people to help in order that one might obtain salvation through works-righteousness.  However, this is clearly incorrect.  The Samaritan is on the road for his own purposes, as are the priest and Levite.  None of them are portrayed as seeking a means to make themselves right with God.  So, if this isn’t about works making one righteous, what’s going on?  The priest and Levite are representative of the teacher of the law, they know the right answer but don’t do it and don’t really believe what they claim to believe.  They are self-justifiers, assuming their knowledge and keeping of the law are sufficient without truly acknowledging the God behind the law.  The Samaritan, on the other hand, as the teacher of the law concedes, showed the beaten man mercy.  Interesting choice of words.  Not kindness, not generosity, not even help.  Mercy suggests the Samaritan didn’t owe the beaten man anything, but rather, put himself out to help him.  It cost the Samaritan something to provide for this nearly dead man.

This sounds an awful lot like how God treats us: God loves us so much that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.  Romans 5:8.  God didn’t owe us salvation, but gave it anyway, at great cost – his one and only Son.  John 3:16.

The Samaritan acted with mercy, the way God treats us.  We are to treat others with mercy not out of sheer obedience; that’s precisely what the teacher of the law was seeking.  He wanted to know he’d checked off the “love my neighbor” box so he could inherit eternal life, as if inheriting eternal life were a matter of doing things.  We act mercifully because it shows others how God loves them, not because it shows our own kindness or decency and not because it proves anything about us.  We are, as Jesus said elsewhere, to be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect.  Matthew 5:48.  The teacher of the law understood the basic principle but missed the larger point of  why we do it.  If we turn the parable into nothing more than a glib directive to be neighborly, then start applying it without reference to the need all have to be justified before God in order to inherit eternal life, we’re no different than the teacher of the law.  We’ve missed the why by focusing on the what.

Jesus is the Good Samaritan.  He shows mercy to those on the road of life who have been stricken by their circumstances (in this case beaten by robbers).  Unlike us, he doesn’t mind bearing the cost of showing mercy and gladly takes care of those in need.  Someone must save us, and it isn’t a priest or an elder or Sunday school teacher or even a parent. More importantly, we cannot, by any effort, justify ourselves.

So while some, even some heavyweight Christians, are busy pointing to this parable as a basis for demanding Christians engage politically, or demanding that we must be neighborly, and then assigning their own views of what this look likes, the parable makes clear being justified requires intervention from someone outside ourselves.  WE are the beaten man!  We are not able to help ourselves.

So why, then, did Jesus tell us to go and do likewise?  Because as Christians we seek to emulate our Lord. We should be willing to show mercy because we have received mercy; we do this not as a means of justification but as an act of sanctification. We are obedient because it is right and proper.  It makes us more Christ-like.  We show others what true mercy looks like so that they might find the mercy we received from the Samaritan’s purse.

 

No One Really Wants Justice - A Reflection on the Derek Chauvin Trial for the Death of George Floyd

Justice?

None of us wants justice, really.

What we really want is what we want, regardless.  Truth is we don’t care about justice at all.  We care about what we want.  We come to matters like the recent Chauvin trial having pre-determined in our minds the “proper” outcome.  We’ve already determined what outcome was necessary for us to believe justice was done.

I read people on one side saying, who needs a trial when you have the video?  People on the other side saying any honest person would clearly have reasonable doubt because of the drugs in Floyd’s system.  One side pre-determined guilt, the other pre-determining not guilty.  Both sides claiming they’re “for” justice.  Both sides lying to themselves.

Our system is imperfect. Our system is flawed. But it’s imperfect and flawed because it’s run by imperfect and flawed human beings, not because it’s inherently racist or misogynist or homophobic or transphobic or any other “ist” or “phobic” you wish to add.  We will never . . . never have a perfect justice system.

Did I want Derek Chauvin to get as fair and impartial a trial as possible? Yes. Did I presume his trial would be completely fair and impartial?  Of course not because trials are NEVER completely fair and impartial.

What, you cry out?  If trials aren’t completely fair and impartial then true justice is not being done.  Well, you got that one right, but you’ve also got it wrong.  The only way to have true justice is to have a fully cognizant, all-knowing, totally impartial jury and judge make a decision.  There is only one being in the universe who meets that description: God.  True justice in the sense of perfect justice never occurs in the courts anywhere in this world because the people operating these justice systems are fallible, fault-laden human beings.

How can we reconcile these competing demands?  First, trials have rules that govern their conduct.  Those rules of procedure and evidence apply to both sides of the case.  If the rule says “X” kind of evidence is not admissible, it doesn’t get admitted for one side but not the other.  Yes, attorneys will argue, and yes, sometimes convince the judge that their evidence is “not X” and therefore admissible.  But judges are not infallible, either. And, by the way, the attorney may well be correct.  In my experience, judges most often make reasonable decisions on evidentiary rulings. I didn’t always like or agree with the decisions I got, but I only very rarely felt the judge was exercising some sort of bias against me or my client.

Second, both sides in the case are represented by lawyers, who by education, training, and experience understand how to present legal arguments, examine, and cross-examine witnesses, and enter evidence. Again, the lawyers are always imperfect and flawed.  Sometimes a cross-examination doesn’t go as planned or a closing argument that sounded like a winner in practice falls flat in front of the jury.  But the attorneys, in their capacity as advocates seek out the best result for their client and, in doing so, play an important role in keeping the system straight.

Finally, juries serve an incredibly important function.  My own experience over the course of conducting about 80 jury trials myself, and observing another 25 or so is that juries generally try really hard to get the legally correct result.  Again, you’re talking about flawed and imperfect people who frequently have little or no experience with the legal system.  Yet, one of the wonderful aspects of our system is that a group of people come together and, as both individuals and as a body, work through the evidence and the law as explained by the jury instructions to come to a conclusion that seeks to do justice.  Did I think every jury came to the right result in every trial of which I was a part? No. But I also acknowledge that I don’t recall ever feeling the jury cheated, or ignored the law and evidence, or didn’t care.

For those arguing a trial was unnecessary – be very, very careful what you ask for – you just might get it.  Yes, the video in the Chauvin case was very damning. But it never tells the whole story, as we found out.  You may find yourself on the other side of a terrible circumstance that calls for a trial.  You would certainly want the opportunity to present your side of the case, right?  Trial by video hardly offers justice – it offers cold-blooded vengeance only.

For those arguing the only reasonable conclusion was that there was reasonable doubt – be cautious in pushing reasonable doubt into some kind of absolutist measurement.  If reasonable doubt means exactly “X” amount of doubt, it removes the back and forth that necessarily goes on in a jury room.  That tussle among flawed, imperfect, and imprecise jurors trying to sift through the law and evidence is what provides a thoughtful and thought out decision making process. Apparently in the Chauvin case, the defense did not present sufficient reason for the jury to have reasonable doubt in light of the law and evidence.  Another jury may have come to another conclusion – but that’s true in any case where the standard involves “reasonableness.”

Our system is inevitably flawed because of the flawed people who operate it, use it, get caught up in it, and involve themselves in it.  Does it always obtain the best possible outcome?  No. Nor should we expect the Panglossian ideal to ever occur.  Utopia never arrives; it’s always just around the corner.   

Justice isn’t the perfect rendition of perfect outcomes.  It’s the operation of a system that generates results based on as reasoned an outcome as is possible under the circumstances. Are there failings in our system (jurors don’t always tell the truth about their biases, outside influences may impact how jurors come to their conclusions, judges make incorrect rulings, attorneys don't manage the case well)?  Of course there are. We have appeals courts to handle such matters as a further backstop to maintain as just a system as we can.

 The only true justice in the universe is that dispensed by its Creator and owner.  God either grants us mercy (we don’t get what we deserve) or justice (we get what we deserve). God’s system of justice operates perfectly because He is perfect.  One might argue it is unjust for God to grant mercy to some and not others, but we have imperfect knowledge and God has perfect knowledge – we the jury just don’t know all. Our limitations and imperfections make us unable and unworthy to render true mercy and true justice. So we do the best we can with what we've got in this fallen, sin-encrusted world.

Was justice done in the Chauvin case? If you mean by justice that the system operated as intended, then yes, even if imperfectly.  If you mean you got what you wanted, then you don’t really want justice at all.