Articles - From the Vicar

A few days before last month's election Ann Widdecombe, prominent both as a Christian and as a politician, was asked on national radio how her faith shaped her political philosophy. She replied that she took as her starting point the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25-37): the Samaritan was only able to help the man who had been attacked because he had the financial resources to do so. Those of you with long memories may remember that Margaret Thatcher made precisely the same point in an address at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland some years ago.

Although I wrote last month that 'Christians should not be coy about engaging with the world of politics', I did not imagine that I would find myself engaging in print with the views of an individual politician quite so soon. I feel compelled to do so because Ann Widdecombe's remarks about the story of the Good Samaritan completely miss the point that Jesus was making. In its Lucan context the story constitutes Jesus' reply to a direct question posed by a Teacher of the Law: Who is my neighbour? We hear about a man who is attacked by robbers and left half dead and then about a Temple Priest and a Levite - fellow Jews - who both pass by on the other side. Finally a Samaritan, a member of a minority despised by Jews in 1^st century Palestine, comes by and in the words of Luke, 'is filled with pity'. It is the despised Samaritan who binds up the man's wounds, takes him to an inn and undertakes to pay the cost of rest and recuperation.

The fact that the Samaritan had enough money to pay for the rescued man's care is true but trivial. Jesus' point was quite different and much more profound: the Samaritan's actions as described in the story challenge the traditional Jewish concept of 'neighbour' (a term understood by Jews in Jesus' time as applying only to fellow Jews) and show how neighbourliness, properly understood, cannot be limited to those who share one's ethnic identity. I thank God that we have the opportunity in Leeds to experience the truth of Jesus' teaching in our rich and vibrant multi-ethnic and multi-cultural city.

One final comment. For me the most memorable phrase in the story is one I have already quoted: the Samaritan was 'filled with pity'. To make a particular (and scripturally irrelevant) point about the Samaritan's financial resources runs the risk of implying that God's estimation of our own compassionate feelings, our own neighbourliness, is dependent on how well off we are. And that would be a strange Gospel indeed.