Context for 2 Chronicles 28: 8-15<\/p>\n
The history of the people called Israel is pretty splintered and tortuous. For generations they were a loose conglomeration of twelve different tribes descending from Jacob the patriarch of Jacob\u2019s Ladder fame. The great King David managed to pull the 12 tribes of Israel together during his reign and unite them into a more orderly. David\u2019s son Solomon continued the rule. But after Solomon died, the United Monarchy split into two independent states. This is when the Samaritan people come into being. The tribes organized geographically – – The Samaritans in the north and the Tribes of Judah in the south – – and they became bitter enemies. Because most of our story comes down to us through the chroniclers of The Tribes of Judah, we get a pretty negative picture of the Samaritans \u2013 murderers, rapists, plunderers. In addition to the deep political rift, the Samaritans and Jews were deeply divided about which group had the true faith and which group were the heretics.<\/p>\n
We enter the story through the vignette that Jim will read from 2 Chronicles.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CHILMARK COMMUNITY CHURCH<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBREAKING THE CYCLE\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n 2 Chronicles 28:8-15<\/span><\/p>\n Luke 10:25-37<\/span><\/p>\n Vicky Hanjian<\/span><\/p>\n July 12, 2015<\/span><\/p>\n A lawyer comes to Jesus and wants to know what he has to do to obtain eternal life. He questions Jesus in order to test him. The lawyer asks a question that has no answer. Jewish belief affirms that eternal life is a gift freely given by God \u2013 neither the lawyer nor anyone else has to figure out how to obtain it. <\/span><\/p>\n So, never one to give easy answers, Jesus answers the question with another question: \u201cWhat is written in the law \u2013 what do you read there?\u201d The very knowledgeable lawyer quotes a combination of verses from Deuteronomy and Leviticus on the love of God and the love of neighbor: \u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind;<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/sup> and your neighbor as yourself.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/sup> – – This satisfies Jesus and he affirms the lawyer. <\/span>Your answer is a good one – – fulfill these two commandments and you will indeed live\u201d – – <\/b><\/span>Jesus might have added that if you do just this much, you will live abundantly.<\/span><\/p>\n But the lawyer has an agenda \u2013 the verse says he wants to justify himself \u2013he wants to look good in his own eyes. So he pushes Jesus a little further \u2013 ahhh \u2013 I must love my neighbor as myself – – but who IS my neighbor? Jesus answers with a story. <\/span><\/p>\n We are familiar with the narrative \u2013 a traveler walking along a notoriously dangerous road \u2013 gets beaten and robbed by armed and dangerous criminals and is left for dead at the side of the road. People walk by. There are dozens of interpretations about the motivations of the priest and the Levite and the reasons why they both pass by on the other side of the road. Over centuries of translation and interpretation, the parable has been overlaid with stereotypes \u2013 the most common one being that the priest had to stay ritually pure in order to perform his ceremonies in the temple and so could not risk contaminating himself if the man were dead. The Levite had to attend to his tasks involving the care of the temple precincts \u2013 and also could not risk contamination. <\/span>Amy Jill Levine, in her book <\/i><\/span>Short Stories By Jesus<\/u><\/span> points out the flaw in these arguments that would excuse the priest and the Levite – -First, they were both headed down to Jericho away from the temple in Jerusalem. Maintaining ritual cleanliness was not an issue. They were headed away from the temple, not toward it. Second, Jewish law places the highest priority on the care of the dead.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Neither Jesus nor Luke gives the priest or the Levite any excuse for passing by. Indeed, there is no acceptable excuse. Their responsibility was to save a life, and they failed. Saving a life is so important that Jewish law mandates that it override every other concern \u2013 including keeping the Sabbath. If the man had, indeed, died, their responsibility was to bury the corpse. They failed here as well.<\/i><\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/i><\/span><\/sup> <\/i><\/p>\n Levine cites Martin Luther King Jr. as having the best explanation for why the priest and the Levite refused to help the man lying in the ditch. King preached this: <\/span>I\u2019m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It\u2019s possible these men were afraid\u2026.and so the first question the priest and the Levite asked was, \u2018If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?\u2019 But then the Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question: \u2018If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?\u2019 <\/b><\/span>Whatever the motives of the priest and the Levite, King is correct. They, like the lawyer, thought only about themselves, not the man in the ditch.<\/i><\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n Jesus is a master story teller. He uses the familiar device of the formula of three. It\u2019s exemplified in a joke or story that begins with \u201ca minister, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar\u201d\u2026. If the joke starts out with \u201ca minister, and a priest – – the third person in the trilogy is expected to be the rabbi. We are primed to hear that.<\/span><\/p>\n Jesus tells a story that includes a priest and Levite. In Israelite story telling the formula of three anticipates that the third party is always an Israelite – – so a story might begin with \u201ca priest, a Levite and an Israelite walk into a bar\u201d\u2026. (That wouldn\u2019t happen \u2013 but you get the point). People listening to the story would be primed to expect that if a story included a priest and a Levite, it would also include an Israelite.<\/span><\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 listeners would have been jarred by the lack of compassion on the part of the priest and the Levite. They would have been expecting the third person to be an Israelite \u2013 an Israelite would be the one who stopped to help.<\/span><\/p>\n But, this is a parable – – and parables are quirky and designed to make us think.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead of an Israelite being the third person – – the one who stops to help is a Samaritan. As AJ Levine puts it: \u201cIn modern terms, this would be like going from Larry and Moe to Osama bin Laden.\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/sup> Samaritans, age old enemies of the Jews were hated and feared and reviled.<\/span><\/p>\n There is a significant shift in the story as the Samaritan is introduced. Jesus\u2019 words about the priest and the Levite are quite sparse. But a lot of attention is given to the Samaritan. \u201cThe robbers steal and wound, while the Samaritan tends with his own goods. The bandits leave the man half dead, while the Samaritan returns him to life. Whereas the priest and the Levite go out of their way to avoid the victim the Samaritan literally goes up to him and shows him compassion.<\/span><\/p>\n As we heard in the passage that Jim read from 2 Chronicles, the Samaritans are not the good guys. They are to be understood as the enemy \u2013 as the oppressor. They were not a benevolent people. \u201cJewish listeners hearing Jesus might balk at the idea of receiving aid from a Samaritan. They might have thought \u2018I\u2019d rather die than acknowledge that someone from that group saved me.\u2019 \u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And yet – – it is the Samaritan who gets involved. What makes him different?<\/span><\/p>\n The parable tells us \u201cBut a Samaritan, while traveling, came near him; and when he saw him <\/span>he was moved with pity. He went to him.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n