| Ruby Turpin is a good, church going, middle class and rather smug, self-satisfied woman who has a rather unpleasant time in the doctor's waiting room among white trash, black folks and an ugly epileptic girl who sees through Ruby. By the end of Flannery O'Connor's classic short story, Ruby has a "revelation" in which she sees those folks she despises - the white trash, the poor, the ugly, the sick- dance and sing their way into heaven, followed at the end of the parade by the good, solid, middle class church going types like herself. O'Connor's story is a revelation of the Kingdom of God in its inclusive glory.
We've heard the Good Samaritan story so often that it is easy to put it into the "been there, done that" category and not really listen to another important dimension of this parable. We assume it is a morality lesson, teaching us that we should come to the help of our neighbor, to reach out to those in need. And, of course, so we should. Folks in trouble have a claim on our care and attention. Jesus counsels his hearers to treat others with mercy.
But there is more being said here. Jesus tells this parable in response to the lawyer's question "And who is my neighbor?" And the hero of the story is the despised Samaritan, the unexpected, the excluded, marginalized, sort-of foreigner. After telling the story Jesus addresses the lawyer's question about the neighbor - but he reframes it. Instead of putting the spotlight on the victim, the "neighbor" in need where one would expect the attention, Jesus asks: Which of these three was neighbor to the robbers' victim? Jesus shifts attention to the outsider, the foreigner. The lawyer is so flustered he cannot even say the hated word "Samaritan".
So this familiar parable is not simply a story about morality, about how we should help people in trouble; it is a revelation of the kingdom of God in its inclusive glory. The question here is "who belongs? Who is part of God's family? Who is neighbor?" If the Samaritan can be neighbor, then anyone who follows God's law of compassion belongs.
And like Flannery O'Connor's Ruby Turpin, we may find ourselves marching - and dancing and singing our way into the Kingdom with the white trash, the poor, the ugly, the sick, the foreigner, the sinners and all those who are our neighbor - whether we like it or not. It is God's standards that count, not our own.
Thanks be to God!
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