Who is my neighbor? What does it mean to be neighbor to
one another?
Jesus once answered this by telling us the parable of the
Good Samaritan. In essence, as he told it, the parable
runs something like this: A man was taking a walk one day
when he was beaten up by thieves and left for dead in a
ditch by a road. A priest saw him there, but passed him
by. Later still, a scribe also passed by without stopping
to help him. Finally, a Samaritan, the kind of person you
would have least expected to respond, saw him, was moved
by compassion, and stopped and helped him.
One of the interesting things in this parable is that
those who did not stop to help him, the priest and the
scribe, did so for reasons that go far beyond the question
of their individual selfishness and selflessness. They did
so for certain ideological, religious reasons. Thus, the
priest did not stop because he feared that the man was
dead and, being a priest, if he touched a dead body he
would be ritually defiled and thereby unable to offer
sacrifice in the temple. The scribe had his own religious
reasons for not stopping. The Samaritan, who had the least
to lose religiously, was able to be moved by simple human
compassion.
Given this background, the parable might, in our own
language and categories, be recast to read like this:
One day a man was taking a walk in a city park when he was
mugged, beaten up, and left for dead by a gang of thugs.
It so happened that, as he lay there, the provincial
superior of a major religious order walked by and saw him.
He realized instantly that the man was in a desperate way
and he felt that he should respond. However, he thought to
himself: "If I help this man, I will set a dangerous
precedent. Then what will I do? Having helped him, where
will I draw the line? Will I have to stop and help
everyone who is in need? Will I then have to give money to
every panhandler, every beggar, every charity? If I give
to this one, then on what basis am I justified in refusing
any charity? Where will it stop? This would be dangerous
precedent. I simply cannot help everyone I see in need
and, thus, it is best not to help this one. This is
ultimately a question of fairness." And thus he
passed him by.
A short time later, a young woman, a theology student,
happened to come along. She too saw the man lying wounded.
Her first instinct was to stop and help him, but a number
of thoughts made her hesitate. She said to herself:
"In that course on pastoral care we just took, we
were taught that it is not good to try to rescue someone.
We must resist the temptation, however sincere and
religiously motivated, to naively wade in and try to be
someone's rescuer. That's simply a savior complex which
doesn't do the other person any good in the long run and
comes out of a less than pure motivation besides. I would
only be trying to help that person because it makes me
feel good and useful. It would be a selfish act really;
ultimately only this man can help himself." She too,
this person preparing for ministry, despite much good
intention, passed by the wounded person.
Later still, a third person chanced to come along, the
chairperson for the local diocesan commission on social
justice. He too saw the wounded man and he too was,
instinctually, moved. However, before he was able to reach
out and touch the wounded man, a number of hard questions
surfaced: "This man really is not the issue. The more
important question is how he got here. What things within
the larger picture—our social and economic
system—produce the conditions that make for this
type of violence and hurt. To help this man is simply a
Band-Aid, solving nothing. It does not address the deeper
issue of justice and why our society perpetually creates
this kind of victim. To help this individual is simply to
do the Mother Theresa thing, but it doesn't solve anything
really. It's the old temptation really - it's easier to
give bread to a hungry person than it is to address the
issue of hunger!" This man too, for all his
dedication and sincerity, like the religious superior and
the theology student before him, passed by the wounded man
without stopping.
Finally, it so happened that the CEO of Texaco Oil
happened to be out joy riding in the new BMW he had just
purchased. He chanced to see the wounded man lying there
and he stopped to have a closer look. When he saw the face
of that wounded person, something in him suddenly changed.
A compassion he didn't even know he possessed took
possession of him. Tears filled his eyes and, deeply
moved, he got out of his car, bent over, and gently picked
up the man. He carried him to his car and gently laid him
in the back seat, oblivious of the fact that blood was
staining the clean white upholstery. Arriving at the
emergency entrance of the nearest hospital, he rushed in
and hollered for the paramedics. After a stretcher had
brought the man into the emergency room, they discovered
that he had no medical insurance. The CEO produced a Visa
Gold Card and told the hospital staff to give the wounded
man the best medical attention possible money was to be no
object. He promised to cover all hospital expenses.
Who was neighbor to the wounded man?
Fr. Ron Rolheiser
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