Gannon makes a good point about the solidarity that the Gospel makes possible:
Early Christianity won the day in Rome because it told the slave woman, daughter of a slave, watching her slave child dying in vain, as it had been born in vain: "Jesus, the Son of God, died in agony on Golgotha so that you should not have to face this agony of yours alone." (Gannon 189)
The question that Christ asks the lawyer in the parable is not about the Samaritan's deeds. Rather, he asks about the relationship between the Samaritan and the Jew. Christ asks who "proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" (Luke 10:36). Unlike other roles, "neighbor" is a shared role. In the role of "mother," for example, even though it is a relational role that implies children in a complementary role, only the mother fills the role of "mother." With the role of "neighbor," however, both neighbors fill the same role toward one another. While a relationship such as that between "mother" and "child" implies unique functions and obligations for each role, there are no distinct functions and obligations between Samaritan and Jew, because both persons are filling the same role.
If there are no unique functions and obligations between Samaritan and Jew, then what becomes of Gannon's suggestion that "man is to be made man by men" and that "my goal should be the full freedom of my fellow man to enrich his own life, for his sake, not God's" (Gannon 189)? What I mean to question here is whether there is, in fact, a "goal" in the Samaritan vocation, or whether, as Ivan Illich suggests in his book "Celebration of Awareness," Christians celebrate their faith "for no purpose at all."
Is the Samaritan attempting to humanize the Jew? This, I think, would turn Samaritan-Jew into a functional relationship, like that between mother and child. Rather, it seems to me that the relationship between Samaritan and Jew is transcendently non-functional. It has no purpose. Christ is Emmanuel, literally "God-with-us." The relationship between Samaritan and Jew is a being-with. In the Gannon excerpt above, he correctly notes that Christ's suffering means that the slave does not have to suffer alone; but I would also emphasize that Christ does not free the slave from slavery. Christ is "God-with-us." The Samaritan vocation is not about healing wounds, but about being-with. And neither, I think, is the Samaritan vocation about humanizing "the Other." There is an ancient expression that God became man so that man might become God. Christ did not come to humanize us, as Gannon suggests (and I am not completely dismissing Gannon's point). Rather, Christ came to divinize us. If the Samaritan is seen as representing Christ, then that sheds even more light on the Samaritan vocation: the vocation is not about humanizing "the Other," but rather it is about divinizing him.
If the Samaritan vocation is not at all functional but rather purely relational (that is, if it is not about healing wounds but about divinizing man), then is the Samaritan vocation ethically obligatory in the sense that we usually think about a "Good Samaritan"? Gannon makes interesting reference to the Gospel story of the Rich Young Man, which may shed some light on this question:
The Eastern Church for a time revered the rich young man of the Gospels as a saint. He had observed the commandments from his youth. Christ wanted him as an Apostle, and was hurt when he declined. His life from then on did miss something. But he somehow made the hagiography. The last lines about him in Scripture are that "Christ loved him." (Gannon 192)
Christ calls the Rich Young Man to sell everything and follow him; this is a total calling. Christ does not command the Rich Young Man so much as invite him; yet Christ does command the lawyer in the Good Samaritan parable, telling the lawyer to "go and do likewise [as the Samaritan]" (Luke 10:37). Why does Christ command the lawyer but not the Rich Young Man?
It seems to me that the Samaritan heals wounds, not to humanize "the Other," but because that is what he can do at that moment. Paul Goodman has some useful thoughts on the importance of the present moment:
Paradise is the world practicable. I do not mean happy, nor even practical so that I can make it work, but simply that I can work at it, without being frustrated beforehand. A task to wake up toward. If I work at something, I am happy enough while I am doing it—I don't think about whether or not I am happy. And if I have worked at it, if I have tried, I sleep well even if I have failed. ("Beyond My Horizons—Words")
If the Samaritan's vocation has a purpose, a goal, then I can't see what it is in the parable. We have no idea what becomes of the Samaritan or the Jew. We only know that the Samaritan helps the Jew, and promises to return to give payment to the innkeeper...which I find interesting, because the Samaritan doesn't drop his business and found a medical institution for robbery victims. He goes on his way to finish whatever business he was headed toward before he encountered the Jew. He does what he can at the moment, and leaves that moment in that moment. Perhaps there will be another moment when he returns, but he will enter that moment when it arises.
Goodman's advice reminds me of another incident in the Gospel:
And a scribe came up and said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go."
And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head."
Another of the disciples said to him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."
But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead."
(Matthew 8:19-22)
Notice how the first man wants to give up everything, and Christ tells him just to worry about finding a place for Christ to sleep. The second man wants to do something tangible and human (bury his father, perhaps comfort his mother), and Christ basically rebukes him for being concerned with such things. Which man correlates to the Samaritan? They both do. Like the first man, the Samaritan is not called to heal wounds for some grand purpose or goal; he is merely doing what he can at that moment. Like the second man, the Samaritan is not going about the business of humanizing, but rather about the business of divinizing (contrary to Gannon's humanistic emphasis).
I think Christ commands the lawyer to do likewise as the Samaritan because the Samaritan is merely acting for the moment; he is like the man who provides a place for the Son of Man to lay his head. The healing of wounds is not the purpose or the meaning of the Samaritan vocation; it is rather the means to that vocation. Christ does not give the Rich Young Man a means, he merely says "come, follow me" (Matthew 19:21). The Samaritan's actions can be practiced by anyone, because they are concrete actions; but healing wounds does not mean that a person is fulfilling the Samaritan vocation, anymore than finding the Son of Man a place to sleep made that man a disciple. Christ commands everyone to do what the Samaritan does, I think, for much the same reason that Goodman focuses on the task of the present moment. If you can't do this basic task, then you certainly can't follow the true vocation which is not to be found in the task itself. The vocation of the Rich Young Man cannot be commanded in the same way, because his vocation does away with the "task" of the Jew's wounds, and goes right to true content of the Samaritan vocation: to encounter Christ and be divinized rather than humanized. This is a supernatural calling, not a commandment to some hands-on action.
To return to my question: is the Samaritan vocation obligatory? I believe that it is; Christ says that those who neglect the corporal works of mercy will be sent to hell:
When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.
Then the King will say to those at his right hand, "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, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?" And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."
Then he will say to those at his left hand, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they also will answer, "Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?" Then he will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me." And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
(Matthew 25:31-46)
Do-gooders might soften their consciences in reading this account. But they forget Christ's words at the Sermon on the Mount:
On that day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" And then will I declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers."
(Matthew 7:22-23)
No doubt, corporal works of mercy are essential to the Samaritan vocation. But corporal works of mercy are not the purpose of that vocation. I began by noting that the same role of "neighbor" is filled by both the Samaritan and the Jew. In Matthew 25, we see Christ identifying with "the Other," a role filled by the Jew in the Good Samaritan parable. And the Samaritan can be seen as representing Christ. Furthermore, the parable of the Good Samaritan is prompted by a question about identity: "And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29). The vocation of the Samaritan is not ultimately in the corporal works of mercy, but in recognizing Christ in both the Samaritan and the Jew. The parable is not about humanizing a human person. Rather, it is about being divinized by a Divine person (i.e., by Christ), and this divinizing begins when you recognize the person of Christ, whether you are looking at him from the point of view of the Samaritan or from the point of view of the Jew. In other words, the Samaritan vocation is about being and encountering an icon into the Eschaton. The Samaritan sees Christ through the icon of "the Other," and "the Other" sees Christ through the icon of the Samaritan.
No comments:
Post a Comment