Short Story: Who Is My Neighbor?

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Who Is My Neighbor?

A legal expert stood up to test Jesus.  "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to gain eternal life?"

Jesus replied, "What is written in the Law?  How do you interpret it?"

He responded, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, 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 legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Luke 10:25-29 (CEB)

You stumbled in and bumped your head
If not for me then you'd be dead
I picked you up and put you back on solid ground

From "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down

Many of the teachings of Jesus are so familiar to us that we do not always realize how offensive they were in His cultural context.  This short, fictional story is my humble attempt to make the Parable of the Good Samaritan¹ as offensive to myself as I imagine it was to its original audience.

I apologize for any medical inaccuracies.

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I had driven downtown just before sunrise.  I had to get to work early that day, and I had promised my pastor that I would drop off some paperwork at our denomination's local office on the way.  I wore a lot of hats at my church.  At one point, I even thought about going into the ministry, but lately I had only been going through the motions.  A lot of things had been weighing on me in the last few years, and my spiritual life just didn't seem to be what it used to be.

I slid a large manila envelope through the mail slot and turned around to head back to my car.  I suddenly realized that, standing before me, was a man in a ski mask.  He deftly pulled out a knife, and, before I could react, he stabbed me in the gut.  In pain and in shock, I fell down and curled up into the fetal position.  The man in the ski mask went through my pockets, taking my wallet, my keys, and my cell phone.  I listened helplessly as he drove off in my car with all my personal effects.

When I finally came to my senses, I tried to get up off the ground, but I was in too much pain.  I noticed that a row of bushes stood between myself and the road, and I realized that nobody would be able to see me where I was.  I looked at my hands, which had been clutching my abdomen, and saw that they were covered with blood.  Nobody was scheduled to be at the office for several hours, so I knew I had to get to a place where somebody could see me.  I used all the strength I had within me to drag myself across the cold rough concrete to the church next door.  By the time I reached the side door, I had no strength left.  All I could do was to hope that somebody saw me there.

What felt like an eternity passed.  "Tony, what happened?!" a man's voice asked.  I looked up, and relief washed over me as I saw Pastor Aaron.  Pastor Aaron was the campus minister who led the religious group I attended when I was in college.  He influenced me greatly in my life: in fact, he was one of the reasons I once considered going into the ministry.

Unable to get any words out, I uttered a faint groan.

"That's tough," he replied.  "I have to get to an important clergy meeting.  I really hope you get the help you need."  He walked through the side door into the church.

I could not believe my ears.  Was his meeting really so important that he had to leave me bleeding beside the church?  Was it so damn important that he couldn't even risk being late by calling an ambulance for me?

Another lifetime passed.  I looked up and saw Rachel, a dear friend from my church.  When I was a child, Rachel taught me in Sunday school, and we have been close ever since.  "Oh my goodness!" she said.  "What happened?!"

I mustered up enough strength to barely squeak out, "Help me!"

"I'm so sorry," she replied.  "I have to get ready for my ladies' Bible study group - I'm leading today.  I hope everything turns out alright."  Rachel walked into the church, doing nothing to help me, just as Pastor Aaron had done.

I remembered the Sunday morning decades ago when Rachel taught me about Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan.  I remembered how she taught me that Christians go out of their way to help people in need.  The irony of it all wasn't lost on me: now I was the man dying on the side of the road, and she was one of the religious leaders who did nothing to help him.  If this is the work of the Church, I thought to myself, then I'm done with it all.  Of course, at the rate things were going, I would probably never have another chance to set foot inside a church.

I began to wonder if I could really trust my senses.  If I had less blood to carry oxygen to my brain, it only made sense that I might be hallucinating.  Surely nobody would just leave me here to die, I thought.  When I looked up again, I had no doubt that I was hallucinating, for I thought I saw Dara.  Dara had once been a pastor, but now there was no way she would ever show her face at a church.

At one time, I looked up to Dara.  When I met her several years ago, I thought I had met a kindred spirit.  She was very supportive of me as I was exploring a future in the ministry.  She even let me speak at her church a few times.  Everything changed between us a few years later, when she showed her true colors.  I came to the realization that she was nothing but a lying, manipulative hypocrite.  She got into legal trouble; she ended up resigning from the pastorate; and her marriage fell apart.  The last time I saw her, I told her in explicit detail what I thought of her.  I said things to her I didn't think I would ever say to another human being, but I was just so angry with her.

Now, in some sense, Dara was there to look down her nose at me before I died.  I looked up again and saw that she was gone.  I closed my eyes and waited to see what lies beyond this earthly existence.  Suddenly I felt myself being moved.  I noticed the sensation of warm denim against my cheek, and I realized that I was now lying on someone's lap.  I felt a hand caress my head.  "I just called 911," a voice above me said.  "An ambulance is on the way.  Just hang on!"  The voice definitely belonged to Dara, but she sounded as if she was far away.


The next thing I remembered is waking beneath bright florescent lights.  I felt tubes blowing air into my nostrils.  As my eyes began to focus, I realized that I was in an intensive care unit of a hospital.  I looked to my side saw more tubes attached to my arm.  I looked over the rail of my hospital bed and saw Dara staring back at me.  She looked tired and pale.  I noticed a large bandage wrapped around her arm at the elbow.

Seeing that I was awake and stable, Dara went home.  A nurse then came in and told me what a good friend I had in her.  He told me that not only had Dara ridden to the hospital with me and stayed with me until I awoke, she had given me two units of blood because I was in desperate need of a transfusion.

I later learned that I really was hallucinating after I was stabbed.  After I was discharged from the hospital, I confronted both Pastor Aaron and Rachel and asked them why they would not help me.  It turns out that neither of them were anywhere near the downtown church that day.  In fact, Pastor Aaron was out of town that week, attending a conference.  What wasn't a hallucination was Dara.  If she had not been passing by the church that day, I would surely be a goner.

I saw Christ that day, not in the people in whom I would normally expect to see Him, but in the person in whom I least wanted to see Him.  This "Good Samaritan," whose blood now flows within my veins, was there for me in my time of need, even after I had been so unkind to her in the past.  At one time, I never wanted to see her again, but now I owe my life to her.  We do not get to choose the people with whom we cross paths in this life, and it is not up to us - Thanks be to God! - to decide who belongs in the vast Kingdom of God and who does not.


Notes:

1. For the Parable of the Prodigal Son, see Luke 10:30-37.  See also James 2:14-17.

The photograph of the roadside curb was taken by Michelle Arseneault, and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.