Yesterday, as part of our monthly theological reflection group I shared this retelling of a familair parable that I had found on line...

The Good Samaritan Retold – Again

I guess we all know the parable of the Good Samaritan?

On one occasion a British politician stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

"What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘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 neighbour as yourself.'”

"You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

In reply Jesus said: “A Syrian refugee was going down from Hungary to Germany because his country and family had been attacked by robbers.  They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  Many politicians happened to be going down the same road, and when they saw the man, they passed by on the other side.  But a German politician as she travelled, came where the man was; and when she saw him, she took pity on him and 800,000 of his fellow refugees, she went to them and bandaged their wounds and took them all in.

"Which of these politicians do you think was a neighbour to those who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The British politician replied, “That's no way to reach a long term solution to the problem.”

And Jesus wept.                                  

(Steve Bunn)

It's very challenging, and it's meant to be.

It also serves as a keen reminderof the tension between short term urgent responses and long term, lasting solutions.  The British politician is cast in the role of the baddy - and yet there is truth in what he says... responding to an acute humanitarian need  is not of itself a long term solution.  The point of the story, or at least as I heard it, is that the British politician justifies his inaction in the here and now rather than really advocating a long term, thought through, solution to an impossibly complex set of circumstances.  Self-righteous refusal to engage - the attitude we ascribe to the Pharisee and Levite in the orginal.

I remember either hearing a sermon or reading a reflection on the original parable, that pointed out that this, too, was an acute repsonse to a specific incident, not a long term solution to the problem of attacks by robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  The instant, humanitariin response is essential, is indeed the demonstration of neighbourliness.  But it isn't ever enough, at least not in a disordered world where the root causes of violence, injustice, poverty, religious fundamentalism etc continue unabated.

The German politician in the story is a neighbour to those she helps... but the British politician has a point too, just not the one he thinks he's making.  It isn't ever as simple as 'either/or' it has to be 'both/and'.  Fish and fishing rods.  Aid and agency.  We have to be neighbours here and now - to recognise and respond to the human need of others.  We also have to take a long term view and work towards a day when such crises are old history.

What makes Jesus weep is self-righteous inaction, the denial of humanity in oneself or another.  It is a challenging story, and so it should be.