The Good Samaritan 4: A Heart Problem

It's easy enough to throw stones at the Priest and Levite. It's easy enough to throw the stones at anyone, as long as it's not ourselves. But this isn't just a parable about religious leaders that turn out to be hypocrites. This is, in part, a story about people who make all sorts of excuses to permit their navel-gazing.

The lawyer asking the questions has the right answers. "You've answered correctly," Jesus says. But Jesus' story seems to imply right answers aren't enough. It's the action that counts. Good theology is only as good as the fruit it produces.

Jesus is an amazing storyteller. It only takes four characters, a simple turn of events and their simple responses to show the human condition in all its devastating selfishness. Yes, we see religiosity, but we all see our own long list of excuses, religious or not. We are all prone to this indifference. This indifference is the egocentrism that is the human heart.

To say "I don't have time" or "What can I do?" or "This could be dangerous" is one thing, fancy and acceptable ways of coldly saying, "I don't want to" or "I don't care." But religious excuses--dressing it up as a matter of God's law or our calling or a theological bullet point--are even worse, because instead of accepting the responsibility ourselves, we push it off on God to say, "God doesn't want me to" or "God doesn't care." Playing the God Card has never been uglier.

Jesus calls us to examine these excuses, both the human ones and the theological ones. What does God really ask of us? What does he really want from us?

"Those guys could be crazy." What does he say about safety and self-protection?

"You can't help everyone. Besides, we're called to serve those within the church, our brothers and sisters." What does he say about who he wants us to serve?

"You can't be too nice. People will take advantage of you, use you." What about avoiding "being used" or "taken advantage of"?

"Helping people like that just enables their behavior. How are they going to learn?" What does he say about enabling?  What does he say about our role in teaching others responsibility or the "value of hard work"?

Surely all he says is more nuanced than that, not nearly as black-and-white as my questions are insinuating. Still, Jesus is showing us God's generous heart, a heart that extends loving rescue and care without hesitation, without excuses. As I've said, it's one thing to own up to our human heart and say, "I don't care," but it's another thing entirely to cast the blame on God and say, "God doesn't care." If we're going to make him the scapegoat, we better be sure we know what he says before we make him the basis of our excuse. In this parable Jesus is already pointing us to his character, and the more we answer those questions, the fewer excuses we'll have.

The more we know this God, his character, his will, the more we'll see that if we don't want to extend help, it's not God who is to blame, it's ourselves. It's that selfish impulse remaining inside of us that frankly does not care about others. It's not primarily a head problem. We may know the right answers, but our actions give us away. It's a heart problem.

And that's exactly where Jesus is pointing.