The Good Samaritan: Parable of Renewal

by Joseph Cunneen

This issue brings us several reminders of the story of the Good Samaritan, which seems so firmly established in our culture that it no longer disturbs us. For his incisive review of the way in which most economists offer self-interest as our highest good, Donald S. Frey chooses an ironic title, “The Good Samaritan as Bad Economist.” The “experts,” Frey shows, would logically make such a judgment. Remembering how little the concerns of the neediest were considered during the U.S. presidential campaign, one might with equal justification consider the Good Samaritan a weak political candidate. Imagine interrupting one's business trip to Detroit because someone was moaning along the roadside; it would be as foolish as asking voters to identify with the poor, instead of exploiting taxpayer resentment against them.

Much of the problem is that even those who are familiar with the Good Samaritan story in a pious context almost automatically contract their notion of neighbor in everyday life, though the traditional interpretation indicates our responsibility to the outcast -- and even our enemies. As Vincent Harding reminds us in his moving review of Martin Luther King's career, it is easier to respond to the claims of justice when the issues are not on our doorstep: Northern “liberals” found King quite admirable when he was being beaten up by Southern sheriffs but quickly became uneasy when he brought his campaign to Chicago. If being a Samaritan means reordering the distribution of power and wealth in our own backyard, the story loses its reassuring tone, and becomes positively radical.

Claire Gaudiani gets beyond the assumptions of Frey's economists, asking us to look more deeply into what is in our self-interest. Her informed concern with both the story of the Good Samaritan and the ethics of Maimonides give her a long-range view of what will benefit us, one that reveals our self-interest as increasingly intertwined with the good of those we are often tempted to ignore. She offers encouraging examples of loans made to community groups in developing countries that offer no prospect for large financial returns in the near term which not only justify themselves economically, but indicate a constructive approach to building a just world economy.

In referring to the risky, ongoing process in South Africa of uncovering the truth about past atrocities and calling for reconciliation, Gaudiani finds deeper levels in the Good Samaritan story. Churchgoers are too rarely reminded that, to his Jewish followers to whom the Jew Jesus first told it, Samaritans were detested even more than pagans; they would no more think of Samaritans as “good” than we would terrorists. The parable achieves its upsetting reversal when we are urged to “go and do likewise” -- go and be like the Samaritan.

Such a reversal connects with all our difficulties in listening to others, especially those whom our training has taught us to ignore or look down on or judge as heretical or evil. Other writers in this issue give us examples of such listening and help us see its personal and social value. Gary MacEoin introduces us to an exemplary bishop who was ready to learn from his indigenous flock in Chiapas; Arvind Sharma explains related tensions between Hindus and secularists in an Indian context; and Melanie A. May challenges our academic and patriarchal assumptions by insisting that “a body knows.”

David S. Toolan's reconsideration of New Age spirituality demonstrates that openness can coexist with measured judgment. He points out superficiality and excess among its followers but reminds us that “one cannot dismiss this crowd without thereby denying something in the human soul that demands historical movement.” Daniel Cohn-Sherbok reviews the Jewish tradition of tolerance toward other religions, and asks for something more demanding: a wholehearted embrace of religious pluralism. Seyyed Hussein Nasr shows an acute awareness of the chaos of living without a center; because he shows such a deep commitment to tradition, his appeal has added credibility: “The future of humanity depends on finding a modus vivendi whereby one can live at peace with the center of one's own being as well as with the center of planetary systems other than our own.”

Rembrandt, whose work adorns our cover, returned to the theme of the Good Samaritan on several occasions. We are not embarrassed, therefore, to confess that since the parable offers no answers, we will go on exploring its implications.