Faith is Neither Gullible nor Hard of Heart- Part I

A Parable, Two Questions, and the Need for Accuracy

A few days ago, as I initially began to write this material, my wife read aloud this brief quote in “The Little White Book  Six-Minute Reflections on the Parables of Jesus”.

A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw the beaten man, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side (Luke 10:31–32).

This reflection pointed out that this is a [teaching] story made up by Jesus and that the priest and the Levite had good reasons for passing by this man who had been beaten and was half dead. Under the Jewish Law, anyone who touches a dead person becomes ritually unclean for seven days and must go through a complex procedure to be restored to being clean, as described in Numbers 19: 11-22.

Having read the entire book of numbers, I was aware of this lesson of “clean” and “unclean” in the Jewish Law but had never recognized it as the motive for the priest’s and Levite’s actions. So, much of what follows is related to that new awareness. The full lesson of this parable is as new to me as I believe it will be to most of the readers of this material.

We begin by recognizing that under the Jewish Law, Priests and Levites were consecrated to the service of God. Thus, in addition to the personal inconvenience of the time and actions needed to be restored to a clean state, they would have seen their inability to perform their primary duties to God as a major failing, if they touched a dead body. They understood that serving God was their most vital task in life!  It is also possible that their understanding of the fact that touching a dead human body made them unclean was an implied command from God not to touch a dead human body. For all of these reasons, their action seems to be good rather than evil or flawed.

So, why did Jesus appear to criticize their failure to help the person who had been beaten until half-dead, and then had the detested Samaritan be the person who rendered the needed aid with incredible generosity?  A computer search for words related to “you shall not touch a [dead] human body” did not identify any explicit command not to touch a human body, though there are many explicit commands not to touch the dead bodies of other unclean things. This is a subtle, but potentially critical detail. The computer search did turn up a specific command in Ezekiel 44: 25-27 that applies only to priests.

They shall not make themselves unclean by going near a dead body; only for their father, mother, son, daughter, brother, or unmarried sister may they make themselves unclean. After he is again clean, he must wait an additional seven days; on the day he enters the inner court to serve in the sanctuary, he shall present a purification offering for himself – oracle of the Lord God ( Eziel 44:25–27)                                                       

The beginning of the Book of Tobit provides a useful piece of the puzzle that this parable has presented to us, by recording the fact that Tobit, a man of fidelity and righteousness, included burying the dead as a valid charitable and praiseworthy act under the Jewish Law.

In Tobit 1: 3, Tobit affirms:

‘I, Tobit, have walked all the days of my life on paths of fidelity and righteousness. I performed many charitable deeds for my kindred and my people who had been taken captive with me to Nineveh, in the land of the Assyrians.’

In Tobit 1:17, he further affirms that: “‘… If I saw one of my people who had died and been thrown behind the wall of Nineveh, I used to bury him.’”

John 19: 38 – 42 identifies, by the actions of Joseph and Nicodemus, that it was the Jewish custom to anoint and bury the dead despite the fact that those doing this service would become unclean.

The contextual detail seems relevant that Jesus created this Parable for a Scholar of the Law who had correctly recognized and just affirmed that the heart of the teaching of the Law was that:

“‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10: 27). After being praised by Jesus for his correct answer to his own original question in verse 25: “‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”,  the Scholar of the Law had asked Jesus: “Who is my neighbor”?

Based on this contextual information, I submit that the problem in understanding this lesson is in our fallible and defective human assumptions, rather than in the Scriptural passage itself.

I believe that Jesus was not primarily criticizing the priest and Levite; He was primarily using this parable about a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan to teach by an example what the First and Second Commandments mean in practice.

I further submit that the failure, if any, of both the priest and the Levite was that they did not love this beaten neighbor as they love themselves. Both the priest and the Levite failed to understand that it was impossible to love and serve God as he should if he failed to love his neighbor as himself. And by not coming close enough to determine with reasonable accuracy whether or not the beaten man was actually living or dead, the priest did not love this neighbor as he loved himself. The Levite faced only the problem of becoming unclean if he inadvertently touched a dead human body.

Thus, it is the absolute importance of the love of our neighbor that has been emphatically affirmed in the Scriptural sequence and the parable that we are examining. Many other New Testament quotations also confirm the crucial importance of love of our neighbor, not just in word but in deed; and also the truth that such love continues to be essential for our salvation.

However, if you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well (James 2: 8).

So speak and so act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:12–13).

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13: 2).

The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as he lived (1 John 2: 3–6).

 If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother (1 John 4: 20–21).

The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and sober for prayers. Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4: 7–8).

And especially, we must never forget, ignore or contradict these core teachings of Jesus:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?  Do not the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?  So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5: 43–48).

Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him (John 14: 21).

We are witnesses of these things, as is the holy Spirit that God has given to those who obey him (Acts 5: 32).

Never fall into the trap of so many of those around us who have replaced these essential teachings of Jesus with the fallible opinions of some men, who long ago chose to reject and discard the historical Christian faith, supposing in their folly that they could replace that faith with their own defective Gospel.  As Scripture points out, even while the Apostles lived, this problem of  individual fallible men rejecting the faith of the Church in favor of their own opinions existed, and their inherent error was condemned:

They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us (1 John 2: 19).

When I initially began to write this material, I was focused on the characters and the significance of their being chosen for this parable. As I wrote, I realized, that focusing on the people, missed the primary lesson of the parable, which was to teach us the importance of the love of neighbor expressed in appropriate action. Finally, the focus of my understanding centered on both the critical importance of, and the vital relationship between, the different intensity of love that is identified in the Jewish Law and that is also explicitly affirmed in the “First” and the “Second” Commandments. The parable powerfully illustrates an appropriate intensity of and active expression of our love of neighbor, which is firmly linked to our Salvation.