Situationalistic Love
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
The Parable of the Good Samaritan has long been admired for its surprising twist, how the hero of the story is a despised outsider. But another distinctive aspect of the parable concerns how it universalizes the demand to become a neighbor. The parable does this by emphasizing the "situationalistic" aspect of extending care and help toward others.
When the expert in the law questioned Jesus about his neighborly obligations, that question was coming from a worldview where familial and social webs of obligation were deeply embedded in society. People had duties to kin and clan. These set pieces of duty and obligation were, and remain, the glue that binds collectivistic societies together.
The Parable of the Good Samaritan blows that up. The Samaritan on the road just happens upon the wounded man. No bond of moral obligation connects them. No social duty is at stake. Their encounter is random happenstance. The Samaritan simply finds himself in a situation.
And for Jesus, the situation is enough. That's what is striking about the story. In a world where morality was tightly controlled by familial and community obligations, Jesus tells a story that emphasizes a chance encounter between two strangers. Who is my neighbor? The situation will tell you.
As many have observed, the situationalistic vision of neighborliness illustrated in the Parable of the Good Samaritan universalizes the duty to care. The thing I'm meditating on today is the situationalistic aspect. Specifically, if love has a situational aspect it demands vigilance, watchfulness, and quick responsiveness.
There is an episodic, improvisational, and interruptive aspect highlighted by the Parable of the Good Samaritan. To be sure, love continues to make its demands within networks of familial obligations. But after the Parable of the Good Samaritan the duty of love assumes a wider and surprising character. The call of love arrives out of nowhere and when you least expect it. Suddenly, you find yourself, as they say, "in a situation." What will you do? In that moment, will you be a neighbor?
If one takes this message seriously, it changes everything - how one feels about free-market capitalism, the way one treats one another in everyday encounter, the decisions to go out of our way for those in need, how one votes, the church one would attend, the career one chooses, the way one spends money, and the list goes on and on. It is a permeating call to action. One would hardly need any other passages. Love your neighbor as yourself is a lifelong struggle... certainly my struggle. Strange how it was for the most part ignored in my evangelical, fundamentalist upbringing. Save their soul and not the body was the message... sadly, and to not completely walk away from christianity took time to take a closer look at Jesus away from that harmful environment.