+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:
Haggai 1:1-2:9, Acts 18:24-19:7, Luke 10:25-37

The young man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”
Luke 10:27-29

When I got home from work on Friday (well, Saturday at 12:30AM), there was a present at my house: 6 home-made scones flavoured with candied ginger. It was the first time in three years our neighbour had said anything other than “howdy” as we passed each other on the way to the mailbox. On the other side of the house, the man that has shared a common wall with us is moving out after more than 4 years here. We’ve never once seen the inside of each other’s house.

When I lived in San Francisco our neighbour came close to filing a lawsuit over some construction. We invited her and her son over for dinner. And arranged a compromise that worked for all parties. It was the first time we’d met in three years. As I pulled out the hors d’œuvres, some pork dumplings, our guest gasped. She was Jewish…

Living in Astoria, NY, we heard the neighbours often enough. A family that owned their house and had raised two sons - both in their early 20s. Their normal, nightly dinner conversations could be heard in our living room. Their abnormal conversations could be heard in all areas of our house except, for some reason, the kitchen. Finally we met one son. IN three plus years, never even met the rest of the family, although I saw the youngest son every day at the grocery store on the way home from work.

And, stretching back, I wish I had one good story about a neighbour that didn’t involve my own parents or family (from 1975 - 78 our neighbours were my grandprents and my great-grandparents). I think my own excuse for all of this would be, if I was asked, “shyness”. But shyness, if pressed, is usually a polite cover for fear, I think. Or embarrassment - which is another word for ego.

Truth be told, I’ve walked down the street a many times during my 20 years in NYC and SF. I’ve seen lots of people who, visually, at least, “fell into the hands of robbers”. We’re quite accustomed to that in large cities. And… well, sometimes I didn’t even bother passing “by on the other side.” I’d just walk right over them. It’s pretty normal. The most recent time was this month, in San Francisco: on the north side of 8th Street between Market and Mission. I can still see the man, laying on a piece of cardboard. It was well after noon as we walked passed. And I kept hoping that my Canadian boyfriend would not suddenly remember that he and I - and that man on the ground - we’re all human beings, in the way that Canadians have of doing. So I walked passed brusquely, like a proper American, and tried to will myself to ignore what was happening…

The Church Fathers say this parable of Jesus’ is not about what it seems to be about. It is, rather, about him. Humanity is symbolised by the man on the ground. Jesus is the good Samaritan, coming to rescue us. The people who pass by on the other side are all the religions of the world. Only Christ is the one that saves us. I don’t dislike the patristic read (as unwarranted as it is by history or the text). I do dislike the way some take that to be the only possible way to understand this parable. The Gospel text (the earliest midrash) seems to put a different meaning on this story: for it is someone who asks Jesus what to do. It’s not a theological dissertation about soteriology. Or…

The interesting point about the Samaritan is, of course, that he’s not Jewish. When I took a class on the Parables at St Gregory of Nyssa church, the first think Rick Fabian said was “The parables are stories about uppity women and thieves.” All of the heroes are not people we’d expect. In the case of the Samaritan, the hero is, to Jewish ears, “theologically gross”. They have the the wrong faith. They are schismatic. They don’t even have a full Torah. They reject the Rabbis. They are isolationist heretics. (One might say, compared to Catholic/Orthodox folks, Samaritans are rather like Protestants who reject church Tradition). Yet Jesus makes this man the hero of his story without worrying about his theology.

We have many ways today that we could point the finger. I know some readers of this blog who would want to point at liberals such as myself, or some who would want to point at the conservative (Orthodox or Anglican) sorts who read these pages. We’d all like to fix each other’s theology. But Jesus nearly never makes points about orthodoxy. Only about orthopraxy. Nearly never, let’s not get pick just now. While there is no cause to say orthodoxy matters not at all, there is lot’s of evidence that it doesn’t matter as much as we’d like to imagine. Be that theology liberal or conservative, we’ve no cause to put it before Orthopraxy.

And as we point our fingers, excommunicate and expel each other, banish each other for “impurity” or “political incorrectness”… we become the Priests and Levites of the parable. We fail over and over to be the Samaritan. And so there we are, on this Sunday. There are those of us who are Pharisees about our (liberal or conservative) religious systems. But Jesus says, quite clearly, that it it is how we treat our neighbours - the one’s who are the same, the one’s who are different - that matters.

Saint Maria Skobtsova of Paris wrote, “At the Last Judgment, I shall not be asked how many prostrations I made, or how faithful I was in my ascetic exercises. I will be asked, did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner. That is all I will be asked.”

I don’t yet know how to apply this in 21st Century America, but clearly my neighbours do better than me. I worry from time to time about sexual morality and theology, but I can not get out of my head the idea that, on the last day, God will be more concerned about that man on Market Street than about my boyfriend.

Much love,

Huw