“A Jewish man was travelling with a group of friends in South America, and accidentally got separated from the group into an area run by gangs and druglords. Some gangsters were there, and one of them shot the man from a spot higher up on the mountain, and then they started to come down towards him. The man, bleeding heavily, cried out to his friend for help. His friend heard him from a distance, but saw the men coming with guns and was afraid to come out. A rabbi in the group was also a bit separated from the group, but didn’t want to endanger his life. The gangsters came to the man, punched him in the head a few times, and took everything he had on him. Then they dragged him their truck parked nearby, threw him in there, and started to drive off to dump him in the river.  


Just then, a Neo Nazi happened to pass by. Seeing the Jewish man bleeding out in the back of the truck, he was filled with compassion and began to weep. He then ran and dove, catching the side of the truck. While holding onto the railing with one hand, he pulled out a pocketknife with the other hand and slashed the tire, causing the truck to flip over when it hit a small ditch. The Neo Nazi jumped off and caught the Jewish man in his arms as the truck tumbled over and went up in flames. He immediately called for emergency help, then took off his shirt and formed a tourniquet to stop the man’s bleeding. Seeing that the Jewish man was in cardiac arrest, the Neo Nazi laid him down and began to perform CPR on him until his breathing had stabilized. He then carried the man to a safer spot and took care of the man, giving him water to drink and checking to make sure all his vitals were ok while waiting for emergency help. When the emergency help arrived, he stayed with them until he was sure the Jewish man would survive, and offered to pay for all medical expenses out of pocket,” said the chief rabbi to the group of rabbis he was training.  


“Which of the three was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of gangsters?” 


“The one who showed him compassion,” they responded. 


The chief rabbi said: “Go and do likewise.” 

 


Here’s another story: 


“A retired member of the U.S. military went to a relatively safe place in the middle East known for vacation. Unbeknownst to him, a group of locals who had some bad experiences with the U.S. military were there and saw his military tattoos. As the man was walking through the marketplace, shots rang out: the ex-military man collapsed as he was hit. The marketplace was in uproar – people were screaming and running for their lives while tents and tables were being knocked over. An American was nearby and saw the man fall, but followed the crowd in running. Another member of the military was there, but was unarmed, and because shots were ringing out, wanted to gauge where the shots were coming from before calling for backup.  


A member of IS (Islamic State) was also travelling in the marketplace at a booth around 100 feet away, and saw the military man bleeding on the ground. Filled with compassion, he ran and dove on top the man, covering him with his body to hide the man from the view of the sniper and protect him. He then slowly moved the man to an area hidden behind a wall and out of sight. Not having any sanitary cloths to stop the bleeding in the spots where the man was shot, the Jihadist took his Quran (for which he had washed his hands 3 times  every time before touching) and ripped out the pages and used those to stop the man’s bleeding. He fed the man with some food and water he had on him. Then, he took off his robe and covered the man with it so that he would not be recognized as an American. He put the man on his back and carried him about half an hour to the best doctor he knew. He made sure the doctor had adequately taken care of the retired military man’s wounds before he left, paying out of pocket for all medical expenses.” As the Navy SEAL admiral finished up the story, he asked the members of the military around him, “Which of the three was a neighbor to the man who was shot by a sniper?” 


“The one who showed him compassion,” they responded. 


The admiral said: “Go and do likewise.” 



First Century Cultural/Racial Climate


I don’t know which version hits harder for you (whether you dislike Neo-Nazis or jihadists more), but this is the story of “the Good Samaritan” in modern-day English. In today’s language and cultural context, it would be the parable of “The Loving (Neo-)Nazi or Jihadist,” or the “Nazi/ISIS member overflowing with love.”   


I think the story of the Good Samaritan is the most brilliant piece of work ever produced by a human mind. When it made sense to me, I had a similar feeling as when I first understood Einstein's equation. Einstein was brilliant because he was able to capture the motion of the universe in about 7 symbols. Jesus captured the meaning of the universe in about 7 sentences. I hope to unpack the depths and riches of this story below. 


The parable of the Good Samaritan is in Luke 10:30-37. Let’s not forget that, literally on the previous page, Luke 9, we read this account: 


“[Jesus] sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 


Jesus just got Jim-Crowed on the previous page. The Samaritans were the descendants of Jews who had moved North and intermarried with Assyrians, so they were literally of a different bloodline/race from the Jewish people in the South. Americans read a lot in school about the discrimination and brutality of black Americans in areas particularly in the Southern U.S. in the early and mid 1900’s. Black people were not allowed to use the same bathrooms as white people; they had separate bathrooms. Here, they wouldn’t allow Jesus to use any bathroom. The Samaritans found out about his race/religion, and wouldn’t even let him enter the town. James and John were so angry at this discrimination, that they wanted to kill men, women and children.  

Just one page later, those reading Luke are hearing that Jesus has made the racist into the hero of the story. What’s going on here? 


First, a comment. The fact is that Jesus or God appears in every single story Jesus tells in Luke. (I have all the details where I run an analysis of every parable of Luke in my notes, which I will post on a supplementary page). So, unless we are to believe that of the 20 or so stories Jesus tells, that this is the lone exception, Jesus/God appears in this parable as well. Where/who is Jesus in this parable? Answer: he is the Samaritan. Indeed, every Christian leader for the first several hundred years of Christianity (Augustine, Origen, Clement, Ambrose, etc.) interpreted the Samaritan as Jesus. So why did we start thinking this parable just meant that “we should be a good person?” 


It’s because, after a thousand years, we lost the context of the hatred between Samaritans and Jews. In the case of Jim Crow, it hasn’t even been 100 years since it happened – so the feelings of pain, the stories of lynchings, of injustice, of brutality – they are still quite raw and fresh in the minds of our collective American consciousness. It's a similar story with the Nazis in WWII and the Jews, but that wasn’t in the United States, and is less recent than Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s (given that WWII started in the 1930’s) so it seems like in some places, that memory is starting to fade a bit. Similarly, we started to see church leaders forget the original interpretation of The Parable of the Good Samaritan as the centuries passed; nevertheless, during the first several hundred years after Jesus died, the feelings of the hatred between Jews and Samaritan, the stories of Samaritans discriminating against Jews, instances of violence or their equivalent of their lynchings of Jews, etc. - these were still fresh in the collective consciousness of the early church. Hence, they understood what Jesus meant. 


Jesus' Analogies Have Shock Value


Indeed, Jesus’ story would have been like making a Nazi or Ku Klux Klansman the hero of the story in our modern day. It was incredibly weird. And anytime Jesus says something weird, you know he’s making a deeper spiritual point. For example: 


-a boy goes to his dad and says, “I don’t want to wait until you’re dead for my inheritance. Can you just sell your property and other assets and give me my money now? And the dad does it” in Luke 15 – this is incredibly shocking (especially to an ancient Jewish culture that valued respect for parents/elders so much). What did Jesus mean here? Upon further analysis, the father is God. 


-A servant owes his master about $5 billion dollars (200,000 years worth of wages). He falls on his knees, pleading that he will repay the whole thing, and the master just clears his off the entire debt. The servant then finds someone who owes him $100 and beats the guy up and puts him in jail. (Matthew 18) This is absurd. What did Jesus mean here? Upon further analysis, the master is God and we owe God an infinite debt we can’t repay.   


-A guy is about to be fired by his boss. So he uses the power he has in the final few days to essentially give everyone he knows a massive discount, such that his boss loses money. However, the boss commends the employee. (Luke 16) Why is the boss happy that the employee selfishly made him lose profit for selfish reasons? What did Jesus mean here? Upon further analysis, the master is God and the money is actually what God has given us.  


-etc... e.g. we can talk about the absurdity of hired farm hands killing the farm owner’s son in Jesus’ story in Matthew 21. Or people who have been invited to a king’s feast killing his representatives in Matthew 22, etc. etc. What does Jesus mean here? Each time, the absurdity of the story Jesus tells makes us dig deeper into what He actually means, and upon further analysis, we see the spiritual analogy Jesus is actually trying to make.  

 

Jesus uses these analogies because He is a genius neuroscientist. He understands how the human brain works: he knows that people learn by (1) connecting abstract concepts to concrete ideas and more foreign ideas to ideas they are more familiar with (so he uses analogies) (2) the role that activating emotions, in particular the amygdala plays in learning and retention of information. The Maker of the human mind understands how it works better than anyone else. Furthermore, the thing that Jesus is concerned about the most is our relationship with him, so these stories are focused on spiritual truths about his relationship to us.  


“A man is along a dangerous road with robbers, and somehow it’s not the respected members of humanitarian organizations who help him – it is the Nazi who stops on the road, risking his life to save the man.” What did Jesus mean here? Upon further analysis,... (continue reading in Part II)