Friday, August 12, 2016

The Samaritan et.c.

Our Lord does indeed say "Love your enemies"; and there is, of course, a resonance of the same in the Good Samaritan.

But in the context of the question
Who is my neighbour?
the particular answer given is a bit stranger even than that.

The further context behind the question, that being the Second Great Law: Love thy neighbour as thyself, puts what might be a judicial edge to it: who is my neighbour whom I am bound to love, and who is he I may hate?

I suggest that Jesus' answer, followed by the exhortation Go thou and do [as that Samaritan], means that the question is wrong. Jesus does indeed point out how (by the lawyer's own admission) one may be bound in Law to love an enemy, but more than that: Jesus is telling this Lawyer How To Find His Living Soul In The Law: make yourself a neighbour, and (a) you will have fulfilled the law, and (b) the Law Itself will find you lovable.

Who doesn't want to be loved?

Who, then, should not want to be lovable?

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