I have had a few thoughts in my mind for a while now that I have not been bold enough to share for fear of backlash. But, as these thoughts chase themselves in my head, I realize this is not a luxury I cannot continue to afford myself. It is because of my immense privilege that I can decide when and where to have conversations that may cause me discomfort or the potential loss of relationships. So, here I go:
For a long time, I've been bothered by the parable of the Good Samaritan. The way that I have always absorbed the story, I am the Samaritan. I am the one gallantly putting aside my own biases and picking the broken person up. I carry them on my own mule and pay from my own purse to see them healed and cared for. I think this is the way most people read this parable. The desire to fill that character is admirable and beautiful, one I hope everyone will answer, but it is not the real story. When this parable was originally told, the broken man on the side of the road was the same nationality as the audience. They were the ones broken on the road. It was their "enemy" picking them up when their "neighbors" passed them by. The challenge of the story was, who is my neighbor? Who might pick me up when I am broken that I would never expect - or want - to touch me? And then, in turn, who can I love that I would never want to touch? (And, really, we should consider long and hard why we might not want to touch them.)
Then came George Floyd, the protests and riots, and the return of #alllivesmatter as a response (because it is a response) to #blacklivesmatter. There has been a lot of conversation about how "all lives can't matter until Black lives do" and comparisons to wanting to save your own house when it's the neighbor's house that is burning. Those are all really wonderful explanations and I am not knocking them. I have used them and I truly love them. What I want to talk about, and how I see this relating to The Good Samaritan (which is kind of a problematic title, don't you think? What, are the other Samaritans "bad?"), is what "all" really means. Have you stopped to consider it? Let's go to Merriam-Webster:
- All (adj.)
- "the whole amount, quantity, or extent of"
Using the above definition, "all" means...well...ALL! So, whose lives is encompassed in "all lives?"
- Black lives
- Brown lives
- White lives
- Undocumented Immigrant lives
- Refugee lives
- Homeless lives
- Single mom lives
- Single dad lives
- Female lives
- Male lives
- Trans lives
- Gay lives
- Non-binary lives
- Widowed lives
- Orphaned lives
- President and Political Figure we disagree with lives
- Looter lives
- Rioter lives
- I could go on almost indefinitely
Liz, you might say, I still don't see what this has to do with the Good Samaritan. I'll tell you: "All lives" are my neighbor. And so many of those neighbors have loved me even when I did not see their humanity. Even when I said something racist but played it off as a joke or "you know what I meant" (Yeah, they did). Even as I've been upholding a system that actively oppresses millions of people. While I've stood by silently, watching people drown, I have been rescued by those same people time and again. I am humbled by the degree of love I have been shown when I did not deserve it.
Now, let's flip the coin. If we want to live the parable the way most of us have read it, if we want to be "Good Samaritans," if we're going to say "all lives matter," we need to mean it. You have to want equality for "all lives." Now, I am not saying you have to agree with every person you meet. I don't. What I am saying is that you need to recognize their humanity. Their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you were to find them on the side of the road, you need to get off your high horse, wrap them in arms of love, and pay from your own purse for their healing. You need to fight against the people who won't do this and will leave your neighbors to bleed out instead. You need to scoot over at the table and make room. No one is kicking you out of the table to make room for them. The table is really big, you guys. We can even add another leaf and make it bigger if we must.
I'm currently reading "So You Want To Talk About Race" by Ijeoma Oluo (I highly recommend it, by the way. If you like audiobooks, Bahni Turpin narrates it and she is arguably the best narrator I have had the honor of listening to). She has a really enlightening chapter on police brutality. I am not going to unpack it here, but her ending thought is - and I'm paraphrasing - that Black people are not asking White people to fear police. Rather, they are asking for the chance to respect and trust police the same way that White people do.
Jesus said that the greatest commands are to love the Lord and to love your neighbor as yourself. Your neighbor is "all." Jesus died for "all" (If you can't remember who "all" is, please refer back to the above list). What might the world look like if everyone who rallied around "all lives" actually meant it? What might the world look like if "pro-life" didn't just mean "pro-birth"? What if we all set aside our egos and picked up those who are bleeding in the gutter? What if we actually wanted people to know we are Christians by our love and not by the lengthy list of things we don't approve of, don't do, or can't condone?
Jesus met people where they were. I can already hear people saying "but then he said go and sin no more!" Yes, that's true. But he loved them first. He held them first. Then he offered change. He also said something about only casting stones if you're without sin, and I see a lot of stone casting going on (this blog post included *wink*). Also, what we know to be "sin" is based on our interpretations of scripture and the interpretations of equally faulty people who have gone before us. At one time interracial marriage was a sin but slavery wasn't. Food for thought and conversation for a different post.
At the end of the day, make room at the table. It's what Jesus would do.
