Vincent van Gogh's The Good Samaritan
It is hard not to respond to every outrage that we are experiencing now in the United States because of Donald Trump and his Republican co-conspirators, but the damage being done to the United States (e.g., masked, heavily-armed agents kidnapping human beings off the street, the Republican budget bill that will decimate the lives of millions of people and benefit the ultra rich, and so much more) and the world (e.g., the bombing of Iran) is impossible to describe, a damage that will last at least decades.
For those who were deluded into voting for Trump this second time after seeing all he had done during his last term (including fomenting an armed insurrection), I think of one of Trump's favorite stories, the parable of The Snake.
The fable of The Snake is about a "tender-hearted woman" who finds a wounded snake on the road. She takes it home and nurses it back to health, but when the snake recovers, it bites her. As the woman is dying from the bite, she asks the snake why it had bit her after all she had done for it. The snake replies, "You knew full well I was a snake before you helped me."
Trump has used that fable numerous times, and after all he has done--and all we have seen from him--Trump personifies the snake of that parable (e.g., think of Rick Wilson's "Everything Trump Touches Dies").
In contrast, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus told the parable of the Compassionate (good) Samaritan after a lawyer “tested” Jesus by asking what the lawyer had to do to inherit eternal life. The lawyer already knew the answer when Jesus asked him what the law had to say: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” After the lawyer gave that answer, Jesus responded by saying: “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live” (10:25–28).
The lawyer then asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” (10:29), and Jesus replied with a parable that describes the extraordinary actions of a man, a despised-by-many Samaritan, who assisted another human being in need, a man half dead by the side of the road who had already been ignored by two religious people who had “passed by on the other side.” The Samaritan, in contrast, had compassion for the man, demonstrated that compassion in concrete ways, and “took care of him” (10:34).
As always, Jesus expects a response from his audience concerning his parables, a response that involves both understanding and action, because Luke tells us this is what happened after Jesus finished the parable:
[Jesus asked,] “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” [The expert in the law] said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (10:36–37)
The current president of the United States has replaced the parable of the Good Samaritan with the fable of The Snake. If Trump truly believed, as he said last night, "we love you God," he would not act in the ways he does or speak the hateful words he does.
And many of those in the United States who call themselves Christians have joined a man who acts just like the snake in that parable, and they reject the parable that Jesus told as an example of how human beings should treat each other, with compassion and mercy.
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