WALDROP: The Good Samaritan’s unfinished health care

After the church had abandoned the man who had been beaten, robbed and left for dead, the Good Samaritan cared for him in the four ways that Jesus said to love God. We have mentioned his heart (compassionate feelings), his mind (mental availability) and his strengths (personal courage and material resources). Now we mention his soul; that is, his personality (called the “psyche” in Biblical Greek). What does it mean to love God, and people in health crises, with our entire personality?

It means that we see a spiritual dimension to health care emergencies that calls for our personal involvement. Why? Because Jesus combined love of God with love of people with critical medical needs.

This Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) addresses what Ron Sider has called “One Sided Christianity” in his book by that title. The one-sidedness is demonstrated by the ordained priest and Levite who abandoned a man about to die. Jesus did not want the Samaritan to represent “good theology.” If that had been his goal, he could have built it into the parable by introducing “The Good Theologian.” No, this is about “eternal life” and a renegade Samaritan demonstrates it quite well.

Look at him there, willing to see an opportunity, not a problem, in a terminally ill stranger. Watch him again, feeling compassion; and again, stepping down from his animal with his hands full of bandages, oil and wine. Now, the risky part: he’s bending over him, touching him and talking to him to calm his fears. “I will help you,” he promises. “I’m a friend.” But it doesn’t end there, either.

With rehabilitation skills learned from who-knows-where, the despised Samaritan lifts someone with serious disabilities up onto a donkey (or a horse, or maybe it was a camel). Why, that’s a technique most people today don’t possess: transferring someone from a wheelchair to a car (or vice versa)! But very soon, the Good Samaritan is either walking alongside the bleeding stranger or sitting behind him, holding him close on the same animal.

(Continued next week)