In recent weeks we have seen a constant stream of allegations of sexual misconduct against prominent men. One of these is Judge Roy Moore who is running to be elected to a Senate seat in a special election in Alabama next month.
It’s not for political reasons that I mention him. I mention him because of the way the Bible has been used in defending him! One of his supporters, the Alabama state auditor, Jim Ziegler, offered this shocking defence: “Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”
Did you ever imagine the Bible – the Gospels specifically – could or would be used to defend possibly criminal behaviour? I don’t know whether Roy Moore is guilty or not, and that’s not my point here. I’m just shocked that the story of Joseph and Mary could be used in such a way. In fact, the Bible does not give Mary’s age, but she could very well have been a teenager according to the norms of her society. But again, that’s not the point. Before we dump on the Bible illiterates of the Bible Belt let’s be honest with how Mary has been used in our own Orthodox tradition to keep women in subjugation.
As one commentator put it, when Christians cite the Bible to defend child molestation, Jesus should sue for defamation.
And an attempt at defamation is what led to the Parable of the Good Samaritan. A lawyer, νομικός, approached Jesus to test him – the verb ἐκπειράζων can mean to test – as in the standard English translations of the Bible – but it can also mean to trap, as in an argument, to tempt, to incriminate. All the meanings are negative, confrontational. This lawyer was a member of the segment of society that was always out to attack and catch Jesus in his words in order to incriminate him and defame him. This was not an innocent questioner.
When Jesus dialogues with him in the conventional manner that any rabbi would have done, the lawyer goes further and asks the provocative question. “And who is my neighbor?” I imagine a cynical tone in the lawyer’s question – like Pilate’s “What is truth?” He asked in order to justify himself, Luke’s Gospel tells us, δικαιῶσαι ἑαυτὸν.
The question Who is my neighbor? is satanic, in Bonhoeffer’s opinion:
“Who is my neighbor? The whole story of the Good Samaritan is Jesus’ singular rejection and destruction of this question as satanic. It is rebellion against God’s commandment itself, [as if to say] I want to be obedient, but God will not tell me how I can be so. The question What should I do? was the first betrayal. The answer is: do the commandment that you know. The question Who is my neighbor? is the question in which disobedience justifies itself. The answer is: You yourself are the neighbor. Go and be obedient in acts of love…
It is the question of disobedience that seeks to justify itself. Who is my neighbor is precisely the lynchpin upon which the gospel of Jesus Christ hangs. It is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching, the teaching aimed at reforming the human heart. Because the neighbor is not just the family next door on your street with whom you exchange the occasional greeting. The neighbor is the complete stranger, the foreigner, the one whose religion you don’t respect. Samaritans were hated by the Jews, and vice versa. And yet, it was a Samaritan who stopped to help a wounded Jew.
In many icons of this parable, Jesus himself is represented as the Samaritan. And there is profound truth in that. He is the stranger in our midst. He is the foreigner. We have moved so far from his teaching that we wouldn’t recognize him if he stood among us. But he comes to us every time we read one of his parables. He comes to us and knocks at the locked doors of our hearts and asks to enter. To become the neighbor who will take care of our wounds and lead us to wholeness. He is the Good Samaritan and we are the wounded by the side of the road.
Ancient Answers 