Good Samaritan validates needy person – not necessarily his beliefs
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, June 21, 2005
EDINA, Minn. – A good parable to use when thinking about the church, sexual conduct and love is the parable of the Good Samaritan, Robert A.J. Gagnon told those attending his workshop, “Scriptural Authority, Church Unity and Sexual Conduct,” at the New Wineskins Convocation on June 16.
Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said the parable starts with a lawyer who seems to realize what the great commandments are, asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
And, Gagnon said, “If he figures out who his neighbor is, he figures out who isn’t his neighbor and he doesn’t have to love him.”
In the parable, a priest and a Levite pass by the hurt man and do not aid him, but the “Good Samaritan” passes by and helps the man.
Gagnon said that in that time, the Gentiles and Jews would have considered the term “Good Samaritan” as an oxymoron. In today’s terms, he said, it might compare to “Good Nazi.”
“It is noble for us to put ourselves in the place of the Good Samaritan,” Gagnon said. But what if you put yourself in the situation of the man lying on the road? “When you are looking up while you are lying half dead on the side of the road and you are asking yourself who is my neighbor it is amazing how inclusive your opinion could become.”
“Jesus is telling us to reconceive the Samaritan as not someone who should be consigned to hell, but ask who is my neighbor? My neighbor is the person I may come in contact with if I am in dire need,” he said. “When we think about our self interest and direct it appropriately, we can become better person – the person Jesus wants us to be.”
Jesus did not validate what the Samaritan believed, Gagnon said. But to reconceptualize that person and think about what kind of feeling you would have toward that person if you were in deep need – and then its not that difficult to reach out.
“Love does not mean validating everything a person believes or does,” Gagnon said. “Love means wanting to win someone over to the kingdom of God instead of consigning them to hell.”
“Suppose we appear before God and God asks ‘why didn’t you tell that person that behavior might consign them to hell?'”
“‘Well, God, you know what you said about unity.'”
“I don’t think Jesus will buy that,” Gagnon said. “That is where the church is failing,” he said.
“The church is dispensing a truncated gospel that thinks loves is simply validation of a person’s belief and behavior … love entails some hard work.”
“If we are offended by behavior, we look beyond the behavior to the person whose life God sent Jesus to save,” he said. “The church is in the business of reclaiming people for God.”