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More precisely, I've become interested in the motivation for the lawyer's question. Having won Jesus' approval for his reading of the requirements for eternal life ("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”), he wants more:
"But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'" (My italics.)
In "justifying" himself, what was the lawyer trying to accomplish? Several commentators point to other examples of Luke spotlighting people who are more concerned about their own reputations than the essence of faith (Luke 16:14-15, 18:9-14, for example). Sharon Ringe's commentary on Luke (in the Westminster Bible Companion series) suggests that the lawyer, aside from showing off, was trying to get Jesus to put manageable boundaries on the concept of neighbor, perhaps to fit the lawyer's own comfort level.
Ringe ends her fascinating examination of this parable with these words:
No one can simply have a neighbor, one must also be a neighbor. Neighboring is a two-way street. The parable changes in a fundamental way how the question about neighbors is usually framed. The Gospel records no one's response to this story -- neither the lawyer's nor the onlookers'. The story simply stands as another challenge to the transformation of daily life and business as usual, which lies at the heart of the practice of discipleship.
I'm not surprised that the lawyer's and onlookers' responses are not recorded. What counts is Jesus' challenge to the lawyer's motivation -- his seeking to be seen as an expert on the law, and his desire to keep mercy in reasonable bounds. The response to Jesus' challenge that counts is ours.
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In the Good Samaritan story, the lawyer still wanted to justify himself. In asking for a definition of "neighbor," the lawyer sought to prioritize his own comfort. Here we see a crucial lesson for our own dialogues on race: our personal story and our personal comfort are not the priority! You and I might personally not "see race," if that were possible in a nation that deliberately baked racism into every aspect of social and economic life for centuries. However, our smug certainty does not change life for anyone whose actual skin color makes life actually risky, who must "see race" to avoid those risks. And those who bear testimony to the risks of racism are our neighbors.
The man who was rescued by the Good Samaritan had been traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. In commenting on this passage, Martin Luther King proposed a logical extension of the Samaritan's mercy:
On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. [Source.]
This is what being a neighbor means now. For white followers of Jesus, it means not being obsessed with the need to prove that "we don't see race" and are obviously superior to those deplorables who do. It means learning to discern, with God's merciful help, what racism has done to all of us, and to engage in a deliberate collaboration with all the mystics and activists of all races, liberals, progressives, and conservatives alike, to pull down the strongholds of racism. Then we will know that All Lives Matter.
I have a hard time imagining not seeing race, but maybe that's just me. I see no particular value or demerit in my white skin color, but I do have pride in my Norwegian heritage (especially as it has been shedding its near-homogeneity in the last half-century). I want to learn about and enjoy the pride that people from other cultures have, whether or not those cultures are linked with skin colors different from mine. When I was in high school, the expression "Black is Beautiful" gained currency; am I to deny this? The Black church was my first consistent exposure to Christianity; am I to betray that legacy?
"Some Christians say, 'It’s not about race, it’s about grace. It’s not about skin, it’s about sin,'" Acho said in an interview. "It’s hard for Black people to attend predominantly White churches, specifically when White pastors are silent on the issues that matter to Black people."
Mstislav Rostropovich plays Bach's sort of blues.
2 comments:
I also find it impossible to not see race in the culture we Americans live in. And I find this to be true although - no, because - my spouse is Vietnamese-American and my goddaughter and her 3 small children are African American.
In fact, the closer I get to actual black people, the more noticeable the construct of race becomes. The family of four lived with us for over a year. My twin godsons were then 8 months to 2 years, and I found myself worrying, as black parents do, about their safety as teenage boys who are seen as threatening by white people. I always knew poor people, women, black people, single mothers, had a hard time of it, but living with this family through the mother's divorce and her attempts to stabilize her life and start college were still eye-opening. Every safety net is so stingy that it is amazing that anyone ever moves up and out.
In any case, it is impossible to "forget" race even when you love people. Even if you forget for a moment, the looks of others will remind you fast enough. Instead of being largely ignored by black people on the beach (I'm on vacation), I get soft smiles from many black women as I play with my godchildren in the shallow water. White people ask my adult goddaughter who "those people" are; if she answers "my mom and dad," she gets half-disguised puzzled looks that she finds hysterical.
Love does conquer all, but that doesn't mean you stop talking about race and racism and privilege - it just makes it more real. Instead of a civic or intellectual interest, it becomes a passionate concern. And as a Christian I go crazy when "decent" white people go on and on about "all lives matter" -- it is willful blindness that frees them from having to seriously response to racism. Claiming "color-blindness" is just one more white privilege that makes white peoples' consciences easier.
Anne! Don't know why it took me so long to see your comment. Thanks for your real-life observations.
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