| « | America is Not a Democracy, and Other Reasons to be Thankful |
»
|
|
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Fran’s Sunday Ruminations: Neighbors
Now an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you understand it?” The expert answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But the expert, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him up, and went off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, but when he saw the injured man he passed by on the other side. So too a Levite, when he came up to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan who was traveling came to where the injured man was, and when he saw him, he felt compassion for him. He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever else you spend, I will repay when I come back this way.’ Which of these three do you think became a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The expert in religious law said, “The one who showed mercy to him.” So Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.” [The Gospel According to Luke, 10:25-37]
There's no aspect of Christian doctrine that's caused more unnecessary confusion and agita than Christ's command that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. A great deal of the confusion is semantic, owing to the polymorphic, heavily overloaded word "love." But an equal or greater amount stems from the failure to understand the meaning of the word "neighbor" in the context of the Great Commandments.
The Gospels were originally written in either Aramaic or Greek. In the translations from those tongues, the substitution of words in the target language that don't have exactly the same meaning as the replaced words in the original language was occasionally unavoidable. Saint Jerome, who composed the Vulgate translation into Latin, did the best he could to preserve the import of Christ's words, especially by paying close attention to roots and connotations. Subsequent efforts have been as faithful to the spirit of the Gospels as linguistic mismatches make it possible to be.
The roots of the word "neighbor" mean "one who has been brought near."
The Samaritan of the parable above was not a "neighbor" of the robbers' victim in any persistent sense; chance had simply brought him near to that unfortunate, whereupon his conscience and fellow-feeling triggered a compassionate response -- a Christian response from a man whose origins would have caused the Jews of classical Judea to regard him as an inferior. Jesus plainly had the transience of the connection between the Samaritan and his beneficiary in mind when He chose that story to exemplify "neighborhood;" else He would have chosen a story that involved persons with a less chancy, more enduring relation.
Another story, which involves a famous mortal, Count Leo Tolstoy, brings home the consequences of overextending one's concept of neighborliness. Tolstoy once spent a night wandering the streets of St. Petersburg, giving to the poor whom he encountered until his pockets were empty and his energy was spent. At the end of his sojourn, those to whom he'd given were a little better off for a short time, but he knew that he'd made no lasting difference in their lives, that as soon as they'd exhausted the night's benison, their darkness would return. He concluded that, rather than ride forth and scatter one's substance widely and without regard for efficacy, one should act with love toward those whom God has placed in his path -- the very heart of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The appropriate recognition of neighborhood, like the appropriate treatment of charitable love, is critical to the acceptance of Christ's Great Commandments. Only by conforming to the spirit of neighborhood as illuminated by the parable above is it possible for us mortals, inherently limited in our capacity to do good without doing harm, to be charitable in a Christian fashion.
I saw a marvelous movie just last night. It featured themes of great power and importance, a stunning script, and star performances that deserve Oscars if not knighthoods. Yet it did poorly in theatrical release, no doubt because of the shoddy advance promotion it received, which made it look like some sort of sexual exploitation film.
This movie is not for everyone. It contains quite a bit of rough language, and a few scenes of outright violence. It alludes to the sexual abuse of girl children, and the mortally negligent behavior of mothers who know it's happening but permit it to continue. It also treats, delicately, with interracial relations in the Deep South, a subject virtually no one can confront comfortably and without preconceptions. Yet it is a remarkable Christian document, a more powerful testimony to the meaning of neighborhood and the healing power of love than anything I've seen these past twenty years at least.
If you haven't yet tumbled to what movie I saw, patience, please. I'll get there.
One of the gorgeously evoked themes of the movie is that "bread cast upon the waters will return sevenfold." The Samaritan-protagonist, who steps forward to heal a wounded soul God has dropped into his path -- just about literally, I might add -- is himself a wounded soul, whose recent difficulties have caused him to cut himself off from all that might renew and refresh him. But his act of kindness toward his co-star, which doesn't look all that kindly "up front," helps him to rediscover his own sources of life and joy, most especially as regards his faith in the redeemability of all men.
None of this is hammered out crudely, even though much of the action of the movie is overtly disturbing. That gets five stars if anything should, for the besetting failure of most polemic fiction, regardless of its message, is brutality about the message itself. People don't like to be preached at by their entertainments; message, when present, should be implied, with adequate elements of backstory and setting to allow the audience to infer it. That's why most Christian fiction is effectively disastrous in spreading the message of Christ. For preachments, we have the Bible and our churches; we want our entertainment to entertain, not make us feel like unworthy shirkers of our duty to God, whether or not we are.
The movie is Black Snake Moan, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci. It's now available on DVD. Please see it.
"I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." [from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People]
Dale Carnegie's understanding of the milk of human kindness, in particular how to keep it fresh and flowing, is unsurpassed by anyone who's written before or since him. That's why his name is so well known. Note that he didn't advocate "aggressive" charity -- going out purposely to hunt down objects upon which to practice benevolence. Nor did he suggest selling all your worldly goods and sending the proceeds to the United Way. He said, in effect, "Wherever I am in space, time, and circumstance; let me do what good I can while I'm here." He recognized that Christian charity must be bounded by nearness -- neighborhood -- and by the capacity of the Christian to do good without doing harm.
Ours being a hyper-iconoclastic age, no doubt there's someone out there who knows of some instance in which Carnegie didn't live up to the credo expressed above, and who'd gleefully use it to label the old fellow as that supreme object of contempt to those who hold to no standards at all, a "hypocrite." To whomever that might describe: Yo, asshole, the flesh is weak. Ever heard that before? Nobody's perfect, nor is perfection demanded of us; we're merely expected to make a sincere effort. As C. S. Lewis put it, if only the will to walk is really there, God will be pleased even with our stumbles.
But even if you're a hard-case atheist, the immense value of neighborly benevolence and beneficence ought to be self-evident: it comes back to you, multiplied, over time. They who treat their neighbors, whether transient or persistent, with appropriate charity at the appropriate moments will themselves be treated that way when their moments of need arrive. As ye give, so shall ye get. That's not theory; that's the way the world works.
Much of our social dissolution can be traced to the failure to be neighborly in the Christian sense. Much of our individualized anomie stems from the awareness that, not having been neighborly ourselves, we cannot count on neighborliness from others. To get the sense of security that comes from belonging, it's necessary to make an effort to belong. You don't need to be a Christian, or "an expert in religious law," to grasp that.
May God bless and keep you all. And please, rent and see Black Snake Moan. You won't regret it.
Comments
I’ve been wondering about that movie. A good reccomendation.
Posted by og on 07/15/2007 at 10:18 AMI was going to get that one, but decided not to because I was a little unsure about it, I guess I will pick it up next time.
Posted by Heather on 07/15/2007 at 09:05 PM
Comment Form
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
