Today’s Samaritans

by

November 22, 2022 

Most of us think of Samaritans favorably. We know that word as part of the phrase “good Samaritan, ” as in laws that offer legal protection to people who have rendered aid to someone in trouble. The idea, of course, is from the parable in Luke 10:30-37, in which a man is robbed, beaten, and left for dead by the roadside. Two religious leaders pass by on the other side before a Samaritan man goes out of his way to care for the injured person. Like many parables, this one has been domesticated—tamed by centuries of familiarity. It is so familiar that it loses the shock value it had for Jesus’ Jewish audience.

Jews and Samaritans hated each other. They shared a common ancestry, but they had fallen out somewhere along the line and had built a strict wall of separation (see John 4:9). The last person the Jews imagined helping the injured man in this parable would be a Samaritan. My seminary professor Amy-Jill Levine compared it to an injured Ku Klux Klan member being helped by a Black person. In Jesus’ culture, this should never have happened.

This is not the only time Samaritans upend expectations in the gospels. In Luke 17:11-19, Jesus heals ten lepers, but only one—a Samaritan—returns to thank him. In John 4, Jesus reveals to a Samaritan woman that he is the messiah, and she carries the news to others in Samaria. These incidents would have astounded, even scandalized, many of Jesus’ followers.

As conservatives leave the United Methodist Church (UMC) because they claim that full inclusion of gays and lesbians is contrary to scripture, these gospel stories remind us that for Jesus, there were no outcasts. The Jesus movement included women, working class people, tax collectors, and others who lived on the margin of society. But in his teaching and his actions, he also included those who were despised by his own people. Since time began, people have found reasons to demonize others and build barriers, but Jesus embodied and taught love that can overcome the walls that humans construct between them.

Many people find it hard to relate to people who are different than they are. In these polarized times, especially, they identify strongly with those who are part of their own social, religious, racial, or political group and view others as wholly different. They fail to look for the common ground that could be a starting point for productive interaction, and instead erect walls of separation between their group and the “other.”

The UMC’s condemnatory language and exclusive policies regarding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” has bred an environment that is hostile to LGBTQ persons. Many have left the denomination, while others have chosen to remain in the church, and in the closet. Both choices limit the possibility of getting to know people in all the ways we are alike by focusing solely on their choice of life partner. People we do not personally know can easily be perceived as a threat to institutions we hold dear, such as marriage, the family, and the church.

When Rev Dr. Karen Oliveto, a married lesbian, was nominated as a UMC bishop in the Western Jurisdiction in 2016, she and her wife, Robin, prayerfully considered whether to accept the nomination, knowing the difficulty it would pose to their relationship and the church. Robin reminded Karen that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

Karen told me, “That knocked the breath out of me and I went to bed that night willing to say yes.” The next morning, they learned that 49 people had been killed in the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Florida, which confirmed her decision. At a time when LGBTQ persons were still targeted not just for exclusion, but for violence, the ministry of the UMC was limited by not having a member of the Council of Bishops who has experienced that exclusion. As our denomination faces fracture over issues of sexuality, the very community we are fighting over remains a marginal presence.

This month the Western Jurisdiction elected another openly gay bishop, Rev. Cedrick D. Bridgeforth, leading conservatives to file a complaint. In the same week that complaint was filed, LGBTQ persons were gunned down in a nightclub in Colorado Springs. While the timing may be a coincidence, the connection between demonizing a group of people and violence that targets them is not.

Following scripture cannot just mean adhering to every prohibition that tears down people who are outside our group, but instead requires radical love, even to those who our group sees as outsiders. Some people find that is as difficult as Jesus’ followers found it to embrace Samaritans, but continuing to exclude LGBTQ persons contributes to a climate of rejection that extremists might use to justify violence. It has happened before; sadly, it will likely happen again.

The Rev. Jane Ellen Nickell, a United Methodist clergywoman, retired as chaplain of Allegheny College. To reproduce this content elsewhere, contact the author via her blog, A Nickell for Your Thoughts.