Did Jesus know the history of the Samaritans?

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 10:25-37. Most Bibles supply the passage with the heading “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”

The story is often retold. But the meaning is often lost. This is how most people tell it:

It was a dangerous road. Bandits operated on it. One of their victims lay there naked, half-dead. Three men came, one after the other. The first two were Jewish “holy men.” They crossed the road and walked past the half-dead man. The third was a Samaritan, a member of a “race” hated by the Jews. The Samaritan dressed the half-dead man’s wounds. Clothed him. Put him on his donkey. Took him to a hotel. Paid the manager to keep him there and continue caring for him. Promised to give the manager more money later.

Jesus told the story as a mirror for us to see ourselves. To see as God sees. To see whether we are like “the holy men” or like “the good man.”

Why did Jesus choose a Samaritan as the good man? Why not a Jew? Why not a Roman soldier?

Is it right to tell the story without saying that Jesus told it in answer to a question put to him by a pushy, self-righteous lawyer?

Consider my title, “Did Jesus know the history of the Samaritans?” I chose it because most of us believe people from some ethnic groups, because of their history, are dangerous. Must be resisted.

Consider Malaysia. Malays are often called lazy. Because they didn’t work the tin mines and the rubber plantations. They fished, farmed, and died peacefully, while Chinese and Indians were worked to death in mines and plantations. To endure their sufferings, Chinese and Indians turned to opium, samsu, and toddy. They’re often called gamblers, addicts, drunks.

We forget that many Malays assisted Chinese and Indians. We see this in books like “No Dram of Mercy” by Sybil Kathigasu[1] and “If the Sky Were to Fall” by Gary Lit. They cover the period of the Japanese Occupation, and the Malayan Emergency. They speak of suffering and of help given by Malays, even Japanese. Such memories are often suppressed.

Consider again my title, “Did Jesus know the history of the Samaritans?” I chose it because the Jews had suppressed what their own Bible, their own “authorized words about God,” said about good Samaritans. They intentionally forgot the account of good Samaritans in 2 Chronicles 28.[2]

In that chapter, we hear of 200,000 men, women, and children, brought as slaves, as spoils of war, from Judah to Samaria. We read of Prophet Oded, castigating the army which brought them. We read of the leading men of Samaria agreeing with Oded that using and abusing the Judahites would incur the wrath of God.

What was the result of his speech? Hear what the Bible records:

¹⁴ … the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the assembly. ¹⁵ And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all who were naked among them. They clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them, and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.

If you read today’s passage, you’ll hear the echoes of the words down the centuries: Naked. Clothed. Anointed. Donkeys.

Jesus knew the history of the Samaritans. He knew that the history “remembered” by the contemporary Jewish teachers was selective.

What did his contemporaries remember? Very likely, they remembered a few Samaritans who, about the time Jesus was born, polluted the Jerusalem Temple: they spread bones within it, to make it ritually impure. They did this as retaliation for what the Jews did about a century earlier: they destroyed the Temple of the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim.

In all our eagerness to be good people, we focus on repetitive “doing, caring.” We focus on wound treatment and healing. We try not to offend.

But Jesus did offend. He offended the lawyer. He offended the religious and political leaders. He showed them how they labelled people, made them into “degraded humanity.” Through selective retelling of history.

If we are faithful to Jesus, we will hear and tell his stories faithfully. We will be good neighbours to “the establishment” as well as to those who are physically hurting. We will tell the stories which the establishment suppresses. We will speak like Oded and Jesus. Boldly, truthfully.

We must not forget that the lawyer phrased his question, and Jesus answered, in relation to “eternal life.”

We must not forget that if Jesus told the story today, it would be different. The Good Samaritan would form a committee to get the government to improve the road so there would be no darkness, no bends, no bushes for bandits to hide. And establish a 24-7 quick response rescue service.

We must not forget that showing compassion is more important than asking who we should be nice to, or who our neighbours are.

We must not forget that Jesus’ teaching about the Good Samaritan isn’t a complete description of what it means to be a good neighbour. As Martin Luther King Jr said, it’s not enough to soothe the effects of evil; we must uproot the causes of evil.

We must not forget that although the lawyer saw who the good neighbour was, he could not bring himself to say, “it was the Samaritan.”

Jesus’ stories are mirrors. What do you see in his story of the good Samaritan? Will you tell it? To whom? When? How?

Peace be with you.

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[1] 12 years ago, on my personal blog, I wrote Sybil Kathigasu and Chin Peng: Imperialism and Umnoputra. In it, I included several extracts from her book.

[2] I’m surprised the Old Testament passage which accompanies today’s gospel reading in the lectionary is not 2 Chronicles 28. I’m also surprised none of the versions I consulted supply as heading “Good Samaritans” to any part of 2 Chronicles 28.