In his Gospel, Luke retells a conversation between Jesus and a man who was trying to justify his racial prejudice.
“A lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?’ He answered, ‘You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.’ But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”
Jesus indirectly answered the man’s question by telling what is today called, “The Parable Of The Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:30-37). It is a story about a man of one race helping a man of another after those of his own race had refused to give assistance.
Jesus carefully chose the racial identities and roles of those in his story to make his point. Those characters were more meaningful then than now. The rewrite below uses modern identities within the story’s framework to teach the same lesson.
A white man was attacked and robbed by two white men who caused him great physical harm and took his possessions. Another Caucasian who ran a charity in town assisting drug addicts went by, but realizing the injured man did not have a drug problem, went on his way. A white politician came upon the injured man, but knowing he could not cast a vote for him because he lived in another district, passed by the man, too.
Finally, an older black gentleman came upon him. The black man had lived through times when he did not enjoy equal rights, and this had caused him many difficulties and hardships. The black man knew, however, that Jesus required him to forgive others if he wanted to be forgiven himself. The black man stopped and helped even though it took a considerable amount of his own time and money.
The lawyer was asked to summarize the lesson of the story. He replied, “The lesson is we can choose to focus on differences, or we can choose to focus on what is common between us. And always, we must stand ready to forgive; not letting things of the past or superficial distinctions put boundaries between us and our fellow man.”
The biblical parable of the Good Samaritan wasn’t told to teach that we should do nice things for others. It is a story that uses an example of doing something nice for another to teach that we should not be racially biased. We should all love others as we love ourselves.
God first gave this lesson of forgiveness and seeking common ground to Moses in the Old Testament. Jesus reminded us of this lesson with his parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. — a preacher of the Gospel — lived a life that taught us this lesson again in the modern age. I am thankful to all of them for this guidance.
Andy Daniell, president of an Atlanta-based analytical consulting firm, is minister at the First Christian Church of Mableton.
