Vincent Van Gogh’s The Good Samaritan
Have you heard about conservatives wanting to re-write the Bible, to take out all the liberal stuff? That’ll be pretty hard, given the kinds of stories that Jesus was so fond of telling.
Maybe you’ve heard his big story about health care before. It starts with a lawyer, trying to justify himself before Jesus as a truly righteous guy. The initial exchange goes well, but sadly for the lawyer, he’s undone by his own followup question: "And who is my neighbor?"
Note: Senator Lincoln and Rep. Ross, you and the religious conservatives in Congress might want to set down any beverages you are drinking. This could hit kind of close to home. You have been warned.
The story starts simply: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. . ."
Behold, the patient. We don’t know any more about him — nothing about his job (if any), his family (if any), his reason for being on the road, or his health before he was attacked. He was there, he got beaten, and he was left for dead.
Along comes a priest, who sees him and passes by on the other side of the road, as does a Levite (one of the lay leaders of the Jewish community, with both religious and secular political duties). They saw him, and avoided any kind of interaction. Perhaps the priest did not want to touch him and become ritually unclean. Perhaps the Levite had urgent business down the road. Things to do, important people to see. Perhaps they were afraid of being attacked themselves. We don’t know why, but both these leaders of the community looked away and kept on going. And to the man in the ditch, that’s all that matters. They saw him, and went on by.
But then along comes a Samaritan — an outcast foreigner, with strange religious beliefs that put him beyond the pale of polite society in Jerusalem — and what does he do? He provides emergency care on the scene, takes him to an inn and arranges for his short term care needs, and promised to return and pay more if longer term help is needed. He doesn’t ask to see the man’s proof of citizenship, and he doesn’t inquire as to whether the man can pay him back. He sees a man half dead, and he does what he can to help.
Turning to the lawyer, Jesus asks a simple question: "which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" When the lawyer point to the Samaritan, saying "the one who showed him mercy," Jesus must have smiled. "Go," he said, "and do likewise."
I can see why a parable like this might inspire conservatives to want to rewrite the Bible. There’s no mention of personal responsibility, no mention of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, and no mention of co-pays or limits or deductibles. Where’s the smiting of sinners, for crying out loud? (Unless that’s why the guy got beat up in the first place. What was he doing on that road, anyway? . . .)
Three people saw a man in need. Two leaders in the community passed by without lifting a finger; an outcast steps up and provides care.
Blanche Lincoln, Mike Ross, and Blue Dogs in socially conservative areas: which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man in need? Are you going to join the priest and Levite in passing by the folks in the ditch? Are you going to read your contribution reports more closely than the Bible that so many of your constituents read? Or are you willing to get behind real health care reform, like a robust public option, that will benefit those who have been left half dead in the ditch by insurance companies?
Perhaps it would help if the story started "A man was going down from Little Rock to Pine Bluff . . ."
Then again, maybe not.
Related posts:
- Help Us Put Mike Ross/Blanche Lincoln Ad on Arkansas Razorbacks Game
- FDL Action: Mike Ross/Blanche Lincoln Ad Garners Widespread Attention
- Tell Mike Ross and Blanche Lincoln to Act Like Democrats – Or We’ll Find Someone Who Will
- Blanche Lincoln Lectures Blanche Lincoln on a Senator’s Duties
- Mike Ross’s District Supports a Public Option, Mike Ross Does Not
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
Considering Plantation Blanche introduced the amendment which made sure seasonal farm workers could not be treated in a neighborly way.
She may be beyond redemption.
There is something immoral when the amount and the quality of healthcare you get is based upon NOT how sick you are but how much money you have.
“How can we not be united against Death?”
- KO special comment
Thank you Peterr. Beautifully put.
Beautifully rendered, Peterr. I’ve been emailing Sen. Lincoln, Sen. Baucus, and others among the cold hearts. Oh, yes, and several emails to Sen. Snowe, who has many constituents who desperately need affordable health care. It’s your post that they should be reading!
Mike Ross would do a wallet biopsy first.
Thank you, Peterr. Some things in that story that we all need to think about.
fantastic!
I posted a piece on Matthew 25, “The Sheep and the Goats,” a while back and had a long somewhat acrimonious exchange (read the comments) with a conservative who simply rejects any responsibility as a citizen to do anything about health reform.
My favorite quote on all of this is from Uwe Reinhardt, who says, about the supposed insurmountable difficulties of achieving universal health care, “Go explain to God why you cannot do this. He will laugh at you.”
I have more on Social Justice and health care.
Outstanding post – thanks peterr
Since a large majority of the citizens want health care reform and support the PO, would someone please explain to me why Lincoln (who is way down in the polls) thinks that not supporting the PO helps her? The logic escapes me.
after they watch KO’s “Special Comment”..
Servitude to insurance corporations? “Corporate Servitude” Sounds like KO nailed it! “Human Life,” and its “genetic variable” becomes a basis for “segregation of risk,” aka “discrimination” utilized by health insurance corporations, at the state level, usurping constitutional protections while undermining the lives of Americans.
Jefferson Quote:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than
standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people.”
This is the best short explanation of the real meaning of the Parable of the Good Samaritan I’ve seen; most people take it as a lesson in helping others, but it’s really a lesson in accepting “the other.” The star of the parable is not the Samaritan but the injured Jew who must learn that “the other” is a better neighbor than the elite of his own community (as does the lawyer in the frame of the parable).
The people of Arkansas had better be as smart as that lawyer & figure out their Senator & Congressman are the priest & the Levite. Jane Hamsher has identified many Samaritans in the Congress. I’m betting there are some in Arkansas, too, & let’s hope they run against Lincoln & Ross in the next primary cycle. Arkansans need better neighbors representing them.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
Thank you very much, Peterr.
How can you even try suasion with these people on those terms when they can belly up with a variant of “God put the fossils in place in order to test our faith?”
Heed their call and enter fantasy land at your own risk.
Thank you, Peterr.
It would require Lincoln, Ross and the Blue Dogs have heart for them to read this post and understand the depths of their inhumanity. They are “incomplete” people so that’s not going to happen, imo. I imagine they visualize themselves as the inn keepers in this story.
This is exactly the paradox of the conservative rightwing Christians…they misname themselves Christians. Rewriting a bible to their standards is what they must do because they are currently SO far out of bounds with the teachings of Jesus they have little choice, of course, other than to repent.
Peterr, this is precisely the point that needs to be made over and over again to humble these Christian hypocrites!
You know I live in an area of the country very similar to Arkansas and indeed grew up just across the river. It is so hard core GOP I sometimes despair so I want to leave………. then I look out and see a pickup with a couple of guys and remember how often a couple of guys in a pick up have come to my rescue on the road. No one who breaks down here lingers on the side of the road for long. These are good people. Good Samaritans who, God love their prideful stiff sun burned necks, consistently vote for these right wing shills who prey on their fears of dependency.
It is the the narrative of the Good Samaritan that the Obama administration should be following. Not one of good for the economy, vendors and consumers and deficit neutral or better. There has never been enough money in Appalachia and its extension, the Ozarks for people to give much of a damn about it. They do understand who their neighbor is however.
Peace
I live in Indiana and I wish I could echo your post. Instead we have phony Bible thumpers and Evan Bayh running things here for us. And, I don’t blame our leaders, NO! I blame my neighbors for being so stupid as to elect them.
Interesting point.
I, too, in South Texas, and earlier in Oklahoma, have been shown kindness by strangers while stuck on the side of the road with a dead/dying car.
Most recently, in June – I was waiting for the tow truck, but hadn’t been able to move my car from the center lane where it stalled out. A young man who, by his look, might have frightened me in Massachusetts (where I lived last before coming out here) pulled over, ran out to the car and pushed it over to the shoulder. He called me ma’am, told me when he saw me he thought, “I wouldn’t want my mom to be standing there with nobody helping her,” and off he went to work.
I’d like to think he was a liberal, but who knows?
I have talked to many of these so-called “prosperity Christians” – they are often quite willing to help individually when they see someone specific in need – but try to get them to extrapolate out to a larger population and they turn hard and unfeeling.
They’ll tell you that this one person deserves help because of xyz, but that isn’t true for most people who are poor, uninsured, sick, out of work, whatever.
I don’t get it.
Well said, Peterr.
Oh, and yes, well said, Peterr. When I read about the rewriting of the Bible, I thought of you–glad to hear from you so soon.
Not sure it’s fair to blame uninformed voters when some slick talking guy comes around and makes all these pretty promises and says he understands your problems. He’s probably already made his first million or close and he/she is ready to go for the glory of being in DC and playing with the big team. It’s disgusting.
Well said, TalkingStick. The same is true in our community but we have a good mix of liberals,moderates,right,far right. Though between them is a vast majority who just can’t be bothered with “politic stuff”. Not one of them would leave the beaten man in the ditch.
So it was a shock to spend time in mega Surburbia last year in Arizona and Calif. and see the level of disconnect between people and their neighbors. Ugly.
Late to my own post . . .
Thanks for the thanks, everyone.
That shift from helping individually to helping communally is really the sticking point for so many folks on the right.
I don’t get it either, but I’m trying my best to make it less prevalent.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is such a fabulous metaphor for our whole political system.
Peterr,
I am not religious and don’t read the bible. But the story you recount is such basic human ethics it’s hard to believe anyone who considers themselves human could not get the message.
This whole debate is not that complex. It’s simple. Everything in society costs something. Nothing is free. Everything is a business. Health care is a business. Administration of it a business. Businesses provide jobs for the workers and profits for the owners.
If all workers made reasonable wages according to their qualifications and there were no profits, the cost of products and services would be quite a bit lower.
The health industry is huge. That means that there are many people who are making lots of money as profit – shareholders that is. And there are lots of exec and top management being paid huge compensation packages.
Health care for all at reasonable rates is possible if profits are removed from the process. Health care needs to be rationed so that huge resources are not expended to extend the lives of people a few months.
If we want to provide health care to all we need to consider closing down the for profit aspect of providers. it’s that simple. Without doing that we can’t afford it and it will only grow in cost over time.
Rachel finished her show with Sarah Vowell; they discussed John Winthrop’s referring to the whole community as being “one Body,” for whom all must be responsible (as I remembe their paraphrasing).
Where did that go?
And to hychka and tejanarusa also.
First those experiences and observations keep my belief in the goodness in all humans, sometimes hard to find as it is. It is also why I think this health care thing has been handled so poorly. Of course all of life affects and is affected by economics but this is not just something to tweak to indulge expansive wants. It is about life and our commitments to each other; simply what is right. That is how it should have always been presented. I fear no matter how it comes out I will have a bit of a flat feeling and perhaps relief, that’s over for a while. Certainly not the feeling I had when this nation declared racial discrimination was wrong and passed laws to undo it.
You are so right; this was completely mishandled from the get-go. Unless you start from the premise that the Pres never really wanted to accomplish anything real at all.
Either way, I’m terribly, terribly disappointed with him. It’s a shame – he had all the hope in the world, and he’s thrown it away to join in with the corporatists. Such a waste.
People calling themselves Christians can interpret Scriptures in many odd and warped ways.
I have a story of a man in upstate New York, a former carpenter who kept all of his unused carpentry tools in his garage, who when I met him just over 15 years ago was a minister of a small congregation, who had delusions of grandeur, and who was arguing against “HillaryCare” using the most twisted and evil interpretations of Scriptures. But I’ll just spare you the details.
Christian Scriptures seem so straightforward and clear, and yet all manner of rationalization and selective reading can twist the meaning of their teachings.
In the end, a well crafted analysis like this one – and it is very well done! – wins over those who can already see and will never move those like Lincoln and Ross who choose not to care.
I don’t know whether a post like this would move Lincoln or Ross, but I would hope that it would move some of their constituents to make a few phone calls. Those sorts of calls have been known to move even the most stubborn of legislators.
Good point!
I firmly believe that it is key to keep moving the American people.
For example, the DFA/FDL/Credo resolution that the Nebraska Demaocratic Party easily passed last weekend calls for Senator Nelson to be notified of its passage. But doesn’t it have to be communicated to local newspapers and reporters who will then notify the people of Nebraska of its passage? Nelson will be moved by the passage of the resolution only if he knows that his constituents are aware of it because they start calling him to demand a strong public health care option.
Wonderful post, Peterr, thank you.
Tejana, I’ve had experiences here in Ohio with people of very opposite political views who helped me in hours of great need. I’m so grateful to them.
That was a nice bit of local Nebraska politics, wasn’t it?
Jane hit it here the other day, but I haven’t seen anything elsewhere about it.
If they believe we have free choice (as it would appear from the admonition that we must answer the test) they have to answer exactly how WILL they behave in this situation? Will they help their fellow man? Will they create a system to assist ALL Americans? Will they be ideological or insist the solution be effective? Will they try to ignore the test altogether?
The ball is in their court, as it were.
Garrison Keillor once explained that. He said his family and much of the Midwest was religious and loved their neighbor in general…but not any one in particular.
I wouldn’t attempt to know what someone feels or cares and there are a lot of members of Congress. I’m sure there are a lot of different ideas of how to do their job and different priorities. Some just want a steady job to have the economic security we all crave. It would seem they could find that by doing their job, but they see the public as fickle at times. So, many become corporate employees — some after leaving office, some before.
Of course, there are some states where the corporate position isn’t so different from the electorate’s position. In those cases it’s hard to say the rep isn’t serving their electorate as needed.
Somewhere you have to wonder if they ever think of the nation’s interests or if that’s just too vague and distant. Not everyone can think that way.
Mo betta Dems!
Many conservatives apparently have only one mission in life, which the following conservative mission statement sums up: Kill the Liberal.
Anything that liberals propose, conservatives automatically oppose, and try to kill, or defund, or expunge, or censor, or crucify.
Hmmmm, I wonder if this is what happened to Jesus Christ? Because he was definitely a liberal Jew, teaching and demonstrating peace, love, compassion, sharing, caring, tolerance, forgiveness, acceptance…which apparently upset a few conservatives during his lifetime…as the liberal message in the New Testament has apparently upset some conservatives today, who want to “Kill the Liberal” in the New Testament.
Go figure. The conservative “Kill the Liberal” mindset hasn’t changed in two thousand years.
I doubt that the Good Samaritan parable can have any impact on rightwing opinions, though it may cause some individual confusion/consternation. Conservatives won’t recognize it and will be startled to hear that it is in the Book. Most of them do more Bible thumping than reading.
How, you ask, can a Christian be ignorant of one of the two or three most central Biblical passages underlying core Christian theology? He can’t, of course.
But very few of those who feel compelled to bring their religion into politics adhere to anything close to core Christian theology. Instead, they advocate a mix of neo-paganisms: the worship of Luck, Money, Family, and the State. They are startled to hear Jesus’ actual words on “family values” and shocked to know that worshipping the family (particularly fatherhood) was the core of Roman paganism. They are deeply offended by Jesus’ words to the politically and economically active: leave what is Caesar’s to Caesar. In fact, more than one of them has quoted me “the Lord helps those who helps themselves” in full confidence that it is Biblical (it’s actually Ben Franklin).
For the crypto-pagans of the “Religious” Right, religion isn’t a moral position at all. It’s a political and economic tool for achieving worldly success. Wealth, family loyalty, reputation, public piety, patriotism, and preservation of the social status quo are what they mean when they talk “values”. Morality doesn’t really come into it at all. The Book says that they have had their reward. But most of them haven’t read that part either.