Can we identify with the good Samaritan?
Jesus’ parable can tell us a lot about poverty & wealth By David Brondos
esus’ parable of the good Samari- tan (Luke 10:25-37) may seem an odd text on which to base a dis- cussion of poverty and wealth. None of the characters appear to be either wealthy or poor.
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While the traveler attacked by robbers and left for dead needed assistance, the parable doesn’t por- tray him as poor.
Priests and Levites like the ones in the parable were usually neither wealthy nor poor. The Jewish high priests and their families had amassed immense wealth by controlling the vast resources that flowed into the Jerusalem temple from all over the world. But most common priests and Levites who assisted in the temple service had to find other income to make ends meet. Similarly, neither the Samaritan nor the innkeeper is presented as wealthy or poor. But let’s not forget about the rob-
bers. Who were these people? In Jesus and the Spiral of Violence (Fortress Press, 1993), biblical histo- rian Richard Horsley describes how the powerful, merciless and corrupt Roman Imperial system (with which the high-priestly families were in close collusion) generated tremen- dous poverty among the population in the region. As we know from Jesus’ parables and sayings, many people were forced to go into debt, forfeit their land and inheritance, sell them- selves off as servants or even as pros- titutes, and look for any work they
could find as day laborers. Hardships led some to flee to the hills as outlaws, where many turned to banditry to survive. The Greek word lēstai used in Jesus’ par- able referred not simply to robbers or thieves but to these brigands or social bandits. The traveler who was attacked was a victim not just of the bandits but of the unjust, oppressive system that resulted in such widespread poverty and led many to fall into violence and thievery.
The priest and the Levite who passed by were part of that system. Their work in the temple required that they remain ritually pure and observe the Jewish law carefully. Their con- cern for this work may have been behind their refusal to show compas- sion to the victimized traveler. They probably thought the sys- tem benefited them, even though it was widely believed that the high priests unjustly took many resources generated by the temple that the law of Moses assigned to the common priests and Levites. Even they were being robbed by the system, rather than benefiting from it. When Jesus took a whip and angrily overturned the tables of the traders and money changers employed by the high priests, he called the place a “den of thieves,” using the same Greek word, lēstai. The fact that control of the temple system by the corrupt high-priestly elite was largely responsible for the poverty that led many into banditry
means that, ultimately, not only were the high priests among the thieves responsible for the violent attack on the traveler, but their own thievery had given rise to the thievery of others.
It took a Samaritan—an outsider oppressed and despised by the Jewish and Roman systems—to reach out in compassion and help the victimized traveler. When we read this parable, most of us want to identify with the good Samaritan. Yet if we really wish to do so, we must intentionally place ourselves outside of the unjust and corrupt systems that lead to the same reality today as they did in Jesus’ day. What unjust systems? Those that enable a privileged few to enjoy enormous wealth while breeding desperation and hardships that result in widespread crime, violence and social disintegration here and around the globe. Many are left with no alter- native but to migrate far from home in an attempt to survive.
Like the priest and Levite, most of us prefer to do nothing to challenge sinful systems and structures that we wrongly believe actually benefit us. We simply look the other way when confronted with the damage they do to the lives of so many.
If we truly desire to see ourselves in the Samaritan, we must not only reach out in solidarity to other victims of those systems but must be will- ing to step outside of these systems to become true neighbors to those whose well-being they destroy. Only then can we work alongside them and others to build alternative systems and structures that truly benefit all. So do we really want to identify with the good Samaritan, the despised outsider? Do you?
Brondos, an ELCA missionary, serves as professor of theology and biblical studies at the Theologi- cal Community of Mexico, a Mexico City-based ecumenical consortium of seminaries including Augsburg Lutheran Seminary.
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