Richard Sharpe shares his thoughts from
The Study Window, September 2010
It was called a Sea of Suffering. The Secretary-General of the United Nations said it was the worst disaster he had ever seen. I understand that a change in the jet stream had caused the worst monsoon floods in the Indus Valley of Pakistan in eighty years. The floods drowned millions and ruined the livelihoods of millions more. U.K. residents with family connections responded. So did Her Majesty’s Government. So did the U.S. government. Cynics thought they saw why. If those governments failed to respond, then a huge propaganda victory would be handed to those nearer Pakistan, with whom we are still at war. Others argued that since the government of Pakistan was said to be unreliable, even corrupt, then there was little point in doing anything. From this we may draw the bitter conclusion that giving aid is what suits our interests and only the naïve would act otherwise.
My mind went to the story told by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 10, of the Good Samaritan. The story was told by Jesus in response to an important question Who is my neighbour? The first thing I notice about this story is that Jesus tells a story about what people do.
In the story, a man is lying in the road; beaten up, robbed and half-dead. A story about an elderly man, robbed and attacked on his doorstep, made the front page of the Hinckley Times. If it bleeds it leads is the watchword of the media.
The second thing in the story is that the man, lying in the road; beaten up, robbed and half-dead, is ignored. The expression passed by on the other side is still heard. Those who pass by are described as a priest and a temple official. There you have it. Those with power and status don’t want to know. It was ever thus. There you have it. They are religious hypocrites. I need no further reason to justify my negative views about all religious do-gooders.
But the story begs the question whether the man-a victim of robbery-should be left to die and, if further action is needed, should it be a matter of travel insurance and compensation? Are these not the ways our minds are now trained to think and best practice is defined; ways which treat the matter in completely in-human, de-personalised terms?
The third thing in the story is the arrival on the scene of the Samaritan. Jesus chose to put him in the story quite deliberately. Think of some one you dislike most. Think of someone whom you would expect the worst from. Put them in the place of the Samaritan. What does this hated person do? He sees the man robbed and lying, half-dead in the road. He not only sees but he is moved with compassion. A security camera can see, but this is something no electronic, de-personalised response can feel. This is something no de-personalised person can do. The Samaritan interrupts his own journey to give the man what we would call first-aid. He interrupts his journey further by taking the robbed man to an inn, where, in effect, he becomes what we could call his personal carer. When he is obliged to leave, rather than leave the robbed man at the mercy of strangers, he leaves money for his care and, what is even more amazing (or stupid, if you like) says to the innkeeper “Look after him and, when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have”.
In these days of financial stringency, this is the worst practice. The Samaritan has left a blank cheque. He has left no cost controls in place. He has left himself open to being robbed himself by an innkeeper who may see his chance to make plenty of money for himself. But, as the story closes, the Samaritan accepts the risk. Is this the action of a fool?
Jesus ends the story by asking, as He so often did, for those who heard the story to draw a conclusion. The conclusion is that, to be a neighbour is to do as the Samaritan did. Questions of whom we like, whom we don’t like, whom we fear or who isn’t like us vanish.
Back with the floods in Pakistan. I can complain of weariness with too many disasters. I can complain that I have no connection with these people and leave them at the mercy of fate or a cruel, utterly-pointless world, in which millions are drowned, like images in a film. Pakistan floods become a horror movie without the need for a set. I may even justify my lack of belief in a god by showing, yet again, how the so-called god permits suffering on such a huge scale and does nothing.
Or I can do as Jesus invites us to do in the story; that a compassionate God invites us to find our own humanity in acts of love and compassion for those whom we see suffering around us; that such acts run risks; risks that my giving may be squandered or abused. This, as I see it, is what love does. It does not calculate returns or look for self-protection. It gives and does so generously. This is what you see Jesus doing on the cross.