06.03 Priest and Samaritan
III. PRIEST AND SAMARITAN
Turn next to the parable itself the application of the general truth. It was a Samaritan who “proved himself neighbour”; the priest and the Levite failed in the test they “passed by on the other side.” Our Lord thus gives a revelation of real, and a rebuke of unreal, religion. The Priest and the Levite represent formal, organized religion; the Samaritan represents the essential spirit of religion. Let us not make the common and foolish mistake of supposing that Jesus meant to condemn the religion of the Priest and Levite, and to commend the religion of the Samaritan. He himself loyally conformed to the religion of the Hebrews: He confessed that the way of salvation was with the Jews. ’He chose the Samaritan in the parable simply in order to strengthen His rebuke of the Priest and Levite. It was left to a Samaritan to show the Priest and the Levite how miserably they had failed to hold the spirit of true religion with its form. Let us try to apply the rebuke to our own times. Alas! it is sorely needed. The Christian Church exists in the world to be the organized embodiment of the Spirit of Christ. When it has been true to itself, it has been faithful to this high office.
It was the early Church which made the world see what the Spirit of Christ was, by its instinctive and eager compassion for the poor, the slave, the diseased, the afflicted. At its best, to use the noble words of Dr. Liddon, the Church “everywhere stands before humanity not as a patroness but as might be a loving and faithful servant, who is too loyal, too enamoured of her master’s name and birthright to be otherwise than affectionate and respectful in the hour of his poverty and his shame.” However natural it may be for “the world” to keep sorrow, suffering, poverty, out of its sight, as things which disturb its enjoyment of life or provoke its inconvenient conscience, to “pass them by on the other side,” the Christian Church must, so far from avoiding, seek them out and cheerfully accept them as opportunities for service. It must always be on the side where need and distress are lying. This ought to be the very instinct of its life. But there are times when the Church forgets its primary duty. Wealth, comfort, ease, enfeeble the energy of its compassion. The smoothness of conventional routine deadens its spirit. Or, it becomes overoccupied with its interests and claims as an institution, with the elaboration of its ceremonies, with controversy about its doctrines, and its character as a brotherhood of service grows faint and feeble. It becomes the Priest and the Levite and passes by on the other side. Then it is that the Samaritan is sent to rebuke it and recall it to its true life. The Spirit of the Divine Neighbour, finding Himself straitened and thwarted in His own Body, turns to those who are without, and finding a welcome there, inspires them to do the service which the Church leaves undone. Are there not signs at the present time of such a situation? The Bishop of Southwark recently expressed these signs as a weakening of “embodied” and a strengthening of “diffusive” Christianity. He meant that whereas the Church as an organized institution seems to make less way than at other epochs, there is, outside its borders or at least in no formal connection with it, a singular activity of the Christian spirit of sympathy and brotherliness. The fact is partly an encouragement; it proves the width and freedom of the Spirit of Christ in man, that far beyond the limits of His Church, He is ever active in the spirit of man, ennobling and inspiring it. But the fact is also a rebuke to the Christian Church. If it were true to itself, surely it would attract and enlist in its service and not repel all this diffused Christian spirit.
It is bound, for the sake of man, to guard the historic Faith. In an age of materialism, it is justified in making its worship a witness to the dignity and mystery of the things unseen and eternal. But does it, with anything like equal zest, keep its heart of service strong and ardent? Does it seem natural to us to describe a body, divided into rival sects and filling the air with the discordant cries of controversy as a brotherhood of neighbourly service? I am not thinking of the noble efforts of individuals and groups within the Church, but of the Christian body as a whole. Does it present itself to men as a Community in which each member, because he is a member, is actively engaged in the service of the weak, the poor, the distressed? On the other hand, we see men and women, weary of Churchwrangles, standing outside the pale even of the Christian Faith, spending and spent in the service of their fellows; and we realize that still it is often the Priest and the Levite who pass by on the other side, and the Samaritan who crosses over and tends and serves and “proves himself neighbour.”
There is surely no ambition which ought to be nearer the heart of every Christian than that by his influence and example he may make the Christian community a worthier reflection of the Divine Neighbour, who is ever in the midst of men “as one that serves.”
TAGS: [Parables]