Second Day: Expanding the Area of Obligation
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and made trial of him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God [pg 082] with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, and came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow he took out two shillings, and gave them to the host, and said, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again, will repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. And Jesus said unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.—Luke 10:25-37.
A meaty story and a famous one. The lawyer found his own answer uncomfortably simple when it was taken up in such a matter-of-fact way. It was suddenly up to him to act on his own advice. He tried to hedge by raising a new question: “Love my neighbor? Certainly. But who is my neighbor?” Who is within the cordon of fraternal fellowship with me? All men of my people and religion? Or only the good and desirable people? Where do you draw the line? Follows the story of the Good Samaritan. “Your neighbor? The alien and the heretic.” The logic of the reply demanded that some good Jew would be shown caring for a wounded Samaritan. Jesus gives it a smashing [pg 083] effectiveness by reversing the role and showing the hated Samaritan as the heroic lover of his kind. To get the situation we must remember the historic enmity between the Jews and the half-breed aliens who had stolen their land and their religion while they were exiled. If we substitute Spaniard and Moor, Kurd and Armenian, Serb and Bulgar, we may get the tension.
Who are our American Samaritans?
Third Day: Raising the Standards
We must live up to what we know is right, and we must expand the area of ethical obligation to take in even men of alien race and hostile religion. But beyond that, we need a conscious advance in the ethical standards themselves. Jesus worked out this principle with perfect clearness in a part of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:17-48. He states the need, and then shows in six cases how such an advance would work out. We shall take these up in their order. Matthew has introduced scattered sayings of Jesus which serve as corollaries, but which do not bear directly on the real course of the argument; for instance, Matthew 5:23-26; 29-30. In our quotations in this and the following days we shall confine ourselves to the main line of thought in order to concentrate attention on that.
Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.... For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.—Matt. 5:17, 20.
Apparently conservative Jews soon felt the spiritual freedom and force in the teachings of Jesus. He seemed to them to be attacking the sacred Law, the foundation of morality and religion. Jesus mentions the charge but denies it. His purpose was not destructive but constructive. He demanded not [pg 084] less righteousness but more. The lines of right living needed to be prolonged. The traditional standards were no longer adequate. A man might obey them and yet not be a good man. The scribes and Pharisees were the model church members of Judaism and experts in piety, yet they were not qualified to enter the Kingdom of God.
Are we also good people who are not good enough?