MONTHLY RECOLLECTION 2 - FR HEMER ON THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Here is the second of Fr Hemer's wonderful talks given at the July monthly recollection. The first is HERE.

Joachim v Saandrart 1632. Pinacoteca da Brera, Milan

The Good Samaritan

One of the reasons the parable of the Good Samaritan is so well known is that its meaning is so obvious. The straightforward interpretation one might say superficial that we should always be ready to help people in need is fine, but Jesus is saying a few other things more subtle than that.

The situation is perfectly plausible and the priest and the Levite may seem callous but they are prevented from touching the man for fear of ritual impurity.

Now Jesus doesn’t use this as an occasion to give a diatribe about religious hypocrisy. He understands perfectly well why they can’t do anything.

Only a few years ago, Catholic priests would never speak to anyone when they were carrying the Blessed Sacrament. That may seem rude and those who did not know might take offence, but a good Catholic would usually understand that.

The unfortunate man on the road to Jericho is what we call a victim and the priest and the Levite seem to fail in their reaction to this victim. Anyone who suffers misfortune we call a victim, but our modern use of the word is metaphorical rather than literal.

Search for the word ‘victim’ in an English translation of the bible and you won’t come up with much, in the whole RSV it only occurs twice. But There are two latin words which mean more or less the same thing:  victima and Hostia The word hostia in its various forms occurs 118 in the Latin Vulgate. The word victima 113. They never refer to a misfortunate person. They always refer to a sacrificial victim, an animal. The connection between these two types of victims, the cultic and the social, lies at the heart of the Gospel.

The priest and Levite seem to have no time, no compassion for this unfortunate victim at the side of the road, but their whole lives revolve around the other sort of victims, the more literal sacrificial ones. Because their concern is to be correctly ritually pure so that they can handle sacrificial victims at the altar, they seem to be blind or indifferent to the other sort of victims. That isn’t just a coincidence. A religion which requires literal sacrificial victims – bulls and goats – because it is concerned with purity will inevitably make other victims, the many outcastes whom Jesus worked so hard to rehabilitate, among them of course the Samaritans. 

The trouble with people being ritually pure is the only way they know they are pure is to have some other people who aren’t pure. The parable of the Pharisee and the publican shows that the Pharisee only knows how good he is because he knows or assumes how bad the publican is. He says: God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. Much of the work of Jesus is to show that God doesn’t invest in this system of holiness, but rather in one of compassion.

We could almost say that the human race knows of no access to holiness that doesn’t somehow involve victims. There seems to be no way to God that doesn’t somehow have something to do with victims. Either people do it literally by sacrificing animals (or each other) and that nearly always involves a secondary set of victims – those who fall foul of the purity system. Or they have compassion on people who are victims in the other sense of the word, the poor, the downtrodden, the unfortunate, the marginalised. You either make victims or you stand in solidarity with them, but there is no religion without them. The story of Israel’s religion from Moses until 70AD, the final end of sacrifice is in a way the story of how people stopped making one sort of victim and learned to be compassionate to the other sort.

In the parable of the last Judgement in Mt. 25 the king says to the righteous: Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  (Mt. 25:34-35) In other words the thing that makes them righteous is the way they behave towards victims, and surprisingly for them the kings says whatever you did to victims you did to me.

Which perhaps helps shed more light on the vision of heaven we find in Revelation. In ch. 5 we meet the Lamb who stands for Christ:

I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, (5:6)

 "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" (5:12)

But later on in 13:8 he is described as: the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Now this foundation of the world doesn’t refer to Genesis 1, there were no living things around to be slain. It refers surely to what begins to happen in Genesis 4, Cain’s murder of Abel and the strange thing we read that Cain built a city and called it after his son Enoch. That’s the foundation of the world, the world that Jesus repeatedly tells us he’s not a part of and warns us against belong to it. Many ancient cities have myths about foundational murders – Rome being the best example. In other words the foundation of the world is not the creation but it’s the putting together the world as we know it, it’s about how you make society hold together and the whole sorry history of the human race has been one of making victims. So often, in so many different ways some people are OK because others are victims. Some are wealthy, not by chance, but because others are poor. Some know they are good because they know others are bad. And if you think I’m exaggerating by calling that the foundation of the world, look what happens to Jesus when he tries to challenge it and change it. People hate Jesus because he challenges their clear cut idea of who is in and who is out, in other words what he does shakes the foundations of their world. So in many ways, making victims and making sure they stay victims is the foundation of the world, the kingdom of this world  

But the victims are also the foundation of the new world which the OT starts to give birth to but which Jesus inaugurates, A world where victims have a voice, where marginalised people are valued. So wherever you stand, whether you belong to the kingdom of this world, or you try to stand in the new world which Jesus is trying to create, victims are central to your world, they are part of the foundation of the world. You could say all the church’s social philanthropic efforts are trying to make a world where victims are not marginal, not forgotten but are central. Think of Lourdes where the most marginal of people stand at the centre of everything.

When we see someone homeless who looks rough, the worse for drink or drugs, part of us feels compassion but part of us also feels it’s a bit their own fault too. The road to Jericho was known to be full of dangerous people and no one with any sense would travel it alone, and perhaps the priest and Levite think to themselves, “well if he’s stupid enough to come this alone, I’ve no sympathy.” In Kenya everyone warns about being in Nairobi after dark and I remember a girl volunteer who went by train, the train arrived early, when it was still dark. She’s been given copious warnings, but ignored them and within a hundred yards of the station was robbed of her luggage, fortunately not harmed in any other way. And although people felt sorry for her, quite a few just shook their heads and said: “well it’s her own fault”.

That’s part of the problem with victims; people think it’s their fault. That’s the issue in the book of Job, his friends for thirty-odd chapters keep insisting that it must be his fault. Just as with a real sacrificial victim, people assume that God approves of the sacrifice, so with metaphorical victims people can assume that God approves or somehow underwrites their suffering, if for no other reason than as a warning to the rest of us. 

And if God underwrites this suffering then we are of course free to ignore the plight of the victim, we leave him to it just as God has.

When someone is cruel to a person or an animal we say they are being inhuman. That’s spot on. To make victims is inhuman, and therein lies the massive mistake the human race made with regard to God. People assumed that he wanted victims. That’s why we needed revelation to tell us he doesn’t. that’s why his Son had to become a victim to show people what’s really going on and to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We don’t need victims, rather we gather round one.

O salutaris hostia – O saving victim,

The human instinct in a crisis is to make some victims, even for some to make themselves victims, but the whole of the Bible is trying to wean us off that. So as the Vicar of Christ his most solemn duty in a situation like this is to resist that sacrificial impulse.

In Mark’s gospel we get the same scene. But here Jesus supplies the answer and then the lawyer says to him: 

"You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he; and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

  And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." 

This perhaps makes it a bit clearer the the issue behind the parable is the question of sacrifice and victims. The parable is in many ways a midrash on that, and the repudiation of sacrifice is made more clearly the point the simple meaning of the parable is obvious but profound, just as Jesus answer to the lawyers question is simple but profound. But the simple meaning remains a profound one, it’s something that helps us to be truly, deeply human.