THE PARABLE OF THE "BAD" SAMARITAN AND HIS DONKEY

We love the Parable. Most of us identify with the Samaritan. We name our institutions after him. I know of a Good Samaritan Hospital, a Good Samaritan Church, and a Good Samaritan Multi Purpose Credit Cooperative. I'm sure you all know more. 

But before we continue patting each other's backs and celebrating, let us remember what Samaritan meant during Jesus’s time.

There were at least three groups of people that were most hated and despised during Jesus’s time: centurions, tax collectors, and Samaritans. These were the "bad" guys. Jesus's self-righteous enemies pejoratively call him a Samaritan.

Priests and Levites were the "good" guys. They were models of society in word and deed. They were expected to help the wounded: their fellow Jew, on that "bloody way" connecting Jerusalem to Jericho. But they did not.

The "bad" guy did. With his donkey. Ironically, to this day, the "bad" guys still do. Also with their donkeys. They continue to help the wounded, rescue the dying, save the half-dead. But we don't call them Samaritans anymore. We call ourselves that now. We even added a qualifier, we are "The Good" Samaritans. 

But, tragically, we still do not stop and help. We have even come up with the best excuses for our inaction, apathy, and indifference: especially if the wounded is Indigenous, Black, Palestinian, Rohingya, LGBTQIA+, PLHA, Muslim, refugees, communists, or, simply, different from us. The Other. 

The "bad" guys do not care about labels. They are red-tagged, vilified, harassed, and demonized. Yet, they--and their donkeys--continue helping the wounded along the world's bloody ways. 

*art, "The Good Samaritan," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

+Most of our interpretations of texts are anthropocentric (human-centered). Actually, androcentric (male-centered). We forget reading the non-human agents of life and liberation in these texts. Like donkeys and fish, birds, trees, land, rivers... 

++Reading the Parables of Jesus inside a Jeepney https://a.co/d/iB9Eb05