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Gavin Drew is challenged by

Extravagance, obligation, and the“good” SamaritanNot surprisingly, the global

economic meltdown is causinglayoffs. It is predicted that, in a matterof weeks, the “recession” will resultin massive job losses. In Icelandthousands have taken to the streetscalling for the resignation of thegovernment whose policies allowedthe bankers to appear to make goldfrom the hay of over-extended debt. InAotearoa NewZealand, currentestimates are that40 000 to 100 000working people willbe unemployed in thevery near future.Again the alreadypoor are the most vulnerable victims.Again they are, as it were, beaten upand left for dead on the wayside. Insuch a situation there will be plentyof room for “good Samaritans” and“charity work.” And, after all, Jesussaid, “The poor will always be withyou …”1

Introduction – The poor will alwaysbe with youBut we should not jump withjubilation at the idea that hard timesprovide opportunities for good works.They do, but the gospel imperative todo good and let the light of JesusChrist shine as a sign, to all people,of the coming kingdom of God, isindependent of situation – it is auniversal obligation. 2 Indeed, that isthe point of Jesus saying that the poorwill always be with us. Jesus was notindicating social pessimism. Rather,he was evidencing a positive realismthat recognises the reality of bothhuman agency and fallibility. As ahuman construction, the economicdynamics of this world will alwaysbe, and will everywhere be, such thatsome will lose out relative to thesuccess of others – sometimes some,and quite often many, will suffer.

But, Jesus was not being fatalistic.His realism did not result in aresignation to the ongoing reality ofpoverty. In the particular situation inwhich Jesus said, “The poor willalways be with you …” he wasactually commending an act ofextravagance, an act that was seen byhis close followers as an apparent

departure from his usual practiceand teaching concerning wealth.3

Yet, the story about the womananointing Jesus with costly perfumemakes little sense unless we see itas framed by Jesus’ wider under-standing that wealth is a conditionalgift of God, grounded in God’screational abundance, to be usedwisely, and especially to bring aboutjustice by providing for the less welloff. It is only within that frame thatthe woman’s extravagance towardsJesus stands out as shocking and,thereby, points towards the shock-ing actuality of, not only Jesus’impending death, but also to God’sextravagant provision.

The woman’s extravaganceseemed like a significant departurefrom the norm, from the normalexpectation that Jesus’ followers areto always care for, and restore, thepoor.4 Yet, in commending thewoman’s extravagance there was nocontradiction to, or negation of, thatnorm. Rather, as a departure, thecommendation reinforced the norm.As a significant departure from thenorm, the normal expectation wasunderlined.

However, more deeply, we should

understand the woman’s provisionfor Jesus’ bodily dignity as comport-ing with God’s own extravagantprovision, in the plenty of creationthat God makes possible, andthereby materially sustains thedignity of people – this is a matterof extravagant jubilee celebration. Incommending the extravagance, Jesus

was indicating histrust in God, ratherthan in the exerciseof conventionalwisdom. Hence,we may not seeJesus as resignedto defeat. Even inthe face of impend-ing death, and

although identifying with the poor,he is materially blessed. Jesus is notleft on the wayside by God. Likethe victim in the parable of theneighbourly Samaritan,5 Jesus isanointed hinting that he too is to bebrought to a place of restoration. Jesusis the anointed one, even thoughneither the metaphysics nor theeconomics may seem rational to us.

Nor may any of Jesus’ actions andteaching be taken as indicating thathe saw the restoration of the poor tomaterial dignity as an “opportunity”.Rather, his comment about thecontinuation of poverty implies theexpectation that his people willalways, and everywhere, continuallywork to ameliorate it, in his name, inways that point to the comingkingdom of God.

Charity?However, the expectation that Jesus’people always care for, and restore,the poor is not an expectation of thatwhich we have come to call “charity”,though it is a concrete expression oflove. Rather, it is an expectation of apositive response to an obligation.Care for the victim and the poor is theonly legitimate response to finding

“Again the already poor are the most vulnerablevictims. Again they are, as it were, beaten up andleft for dead on the wayside.”

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ourselves loved, included in, restoredby, the fellowship of Jesus, theincarnational means of God’stransformative grace in the world.We, together, who know we havereceived that grace know that we haveno choice but to be gracious, generous,restorative, and transformative. Thatis our calling. We may resist it, but indoing so we deconstruct that verycall and falsify the identification ofourselves as ones blessed, addressed,and called. By resisting the calling weremove ourselves and place ourselvesoutside the blessing.6

Seen through our modern, post-Lockean, view of possession, and oursupposed absolute freedom over whatwe think we own, our contemporaryconception of charity is as a free,unconditioned, gifting out of discre-tionary surplus. That might looksuperficially like an outworking ofthe biblical imperative to care forthe poor and to restore the weak.However, the banishing of biblical,covenantal obligation, by absolutisingmodernist freedom of ownership,identifies the difference between whatwe call charity and what the biblicaltexts present as covenantalobligation.7

Our modernist ideas of autonomy,freedom, and choice mislead us. Bythose conceptions we reinforce theLutheran disjunction of grace andgood works – we emphasise theunconditional character of the former,while constructing a view of the non-obligatory character of the later. Theso-called “good” Samaritan of Jesus’deconstructive parable concerningexclusion and inclusion, has beenmorphed into the patron saint ofmodernist good works. By emulatinghim, the capitalist may feel goodabout himself as he freely chooses togive to the poor without cost and realconnection out of what he has “tospare”.

ObligationBut our talk about the “good”Samaritan – a label we place upon thetext, not found in it – misses the point.Our qualifier “good” implies a viewof the Samaritan going against hisSamaritan-ness, thereby earning thesurprising appellation “good”. Butthe surprise Jesus intended to evoke

was subtly different.Further, the implication that the

Samaritan character could haveremained supposedly bad betraysthe presence of the idea that theSamaritan is presented as beingunder no obligation to do the goodwork he does. Thus, we comfort andjustify ourselves by lauding theSamaritan‘s choice to be good andthereby ignore the imperative pointof the parable, “to do the same”.8

But the shock Jesus intended toevoke was that those who shouldhave acted right, failed to do so,while the one who did not enjoy thatexpectation acted rightly. The pointof the parable is not to commend theSamaritan’s surprising choice, butto commend the Samaritan’sunderstanding of his obligation to bea neighbour in terms of living outTorah,9 in contrast to the failure of thepriest and the Levite. This is a matterof Jesus radicalising the biblicaljubilee and its implications con-cerning debt.

The jubilee of the Leviticus 25imperatives does not treat clearly theissue of the non-Israelite sub-classand the matter of non-Israeliteslavery. It seems that, for the writerof Leviticus, neighbourly respons-ibility was demarcated by Israeliteidentity. However, Jesus brokethrough that boundary in a numberof ways. Luke’s report of Jesus’parable about the righteousSamaritan must be interpreted inlight of jubilee imperatives. TheSamaritan is an ethnic outsider.Nevertheless, he understands hisobligation before God and “doesjubilee” by bringing salvation/healing to the one in extremity.Further, by ensuring that the victimdoes not suffer debt as a consequenceof being put upon, the Samaritanrestores justice and inclusion to theman who had been left, as the textsays, “half dead”.

Economic rationalism?But although a major point of theparable is about the radical doing ofwhat Torah requires in terms ofneighbourly obligation and jubileesensibility, the passage whichpresents the parable is about Jesusand a smart-aleck lawyer, an expert in

the Torah. The lawyer, wishing tojustify himself, or make himselfright ( ),10

sought to test Jesus, to put Jesuson trial and, thereby, to vindicatehimself in his rationalised exclus-ivity. As an expert, the lawyerthought he could rationalise “neigh-bour” to suit his own view of theScriptures.

The dialogue between Jesus andthe lawyer begins with markedagreement. They concur upon thestandard view of what attitude andaction sum up Torah – “… love theLord your God with all your heart,and with all your soul, and withall your strength, and with allyour mind; and your neighbour asyourself.” However, when Jesus tellshim to do just that, and thereby enjoythe life of God, the lawyer, knowinghis – and arguably his fellow elite’s– lack of real jubilee practice, em-ploys a move loved of lawyers; heseeks a definition. Jesus answers bytelling the parable. Neither themetaphysics nor the economics ofjubilee seem rational to us, so weseek to reinterpret them in terms ofour wisdom about the way thingsreally work and about what weknow to be possible.

Read against the jubilee impera-tive to maintain the material well-being of one’s neighbours, details ofthe parable are significant. Onemight have expected a priest and aLevite to practise neighbourlinesssince, as members of the tribe of Levi,they enjoyed special grace withrespect to the provisions of jubilee.11

Upon the Israelites’ entry intoCanaan, Yahweh apportioned andentrusted land – the means of wealthproduction – to eleven of the twelvetribes. However, Yahweh did notentrust land to the tribe of Levi.12

The Levites were to be supportedeconomically by the other tribes. Inlieu of a specified territory, themembers of the tribe of Levi receivedpermission to dwell scattered amongthe other tribes, special provisionbeing made for their materialmaintenance.13 They were to behoused, feed and taken care of bytheir neighbours. The materialcircumstances of the tribe of Levipoint toward God’s provision and are

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in marked contrast to our modernistconception of ownership. The peopleof Levi enjoyed continual releasefrom mundane labour in order to beavailable for cultic priestly service.14

Thus, the tribe of Levi enjoyed specialjubilee-shaped consideration, but inJesus’ parable the priest and the Levitedo not give restorative jubileeconsideration to the person who doesnot have the means to help himself.

The jubilee provisions of Leviticus25 aimed at ensuring release fromdebt, restoration of dignity, and thesustained wellbeing of all. The heartof jubilee was forgiving debt.15 But, theSamaritan does not forgive a debt.Rather, he acts wisely and selflesslyso that debt to the innkeeper is notincurred by the victim. EmmanuelLevinas wrote,

No human or interhuman relationshipcan be enacted outside of economy; noface can be approached with emptyhands and closed home. Recollectionin a home open to the Other –hospitality – is the concrete and initialfact of human recollection andseparation; it coincides with the Desirefor the Other absolutelytranscendent.16

The Samaritan acts towards the victimas if victim were himself a Levite, byensuring that the victim was housed,feed and taken care of. Further, whatdebt the victim might have beenobligated to repay to his benefactor,the Samaritan’s actions imply, wasforgiven in advance. Such practiceis in stark contrast to the deliberatecreation of, and trading in, debt thatprecipitated the current globaleconomic situation.

In seeking to test Jesus, by askingwhat he had to do “to inherit eternallife”, the lawyer was asking astandard question about what actionscomport with God’s ever-faithfulblessing and sustaining. Whatevermight be the New Testament’sindication of postmortem life, eternallife is framed and informed by thebiblical story of God’s holisticprovision of a blessed and enduringinheritance. Jubilee is framed by thestory of that inheritance and aims toparticipate in the sustainability ofGod’s provision. Although the actualpractice of jubilee may have proved tobe a dose of economic medicine too

strong to swallow, although it isprobable that Israel failed to dojubilee,17 jubilee remains a matter atthe heart of God’s covenant, whichTorah was intended to protect andexplicate. Indeed, jubilee is located inthe Torah. Thus, Jesus’ table-turningriposte was to ask the expert in Torahwhat his understanding of Torah was.

In terms of the biblical story, therecan be no life of God without jubileejustice – the life of God is justice,jubilee, peace … The lawyer rightlyresponded by understanding Torah interms of the love of God and neigh-bour. But Jesus was not interested ina merely verbal response. Just as toinherit something is a matter of aconcrete state of affairs (rather than amerely abstract intellectual assent), soJesus tells the lawyer “do” or make(poiei) mercy and thereby maintainneighbourliness such that the life ofGod is sustained.18 Notice that theimperatives of Luke 10:28 and Luke10:37 are the same and form areinforcing inclusio that frames theparable.

From the lawyer’s reaction, it isclear that he knew what it is to makemercy, sustain neighbourliness, tomake or to do justice, by concretelyloving God and one’s fellows. Whywas that so clear to him? He was alawyer and knew the concrete shapeof what God’s law requires withrespect to one’s neighbours. WhatGod requires is the “extravagance”of jubilee justice. As an expert inTorah he knew that.

Hence, the lawyer, wishing tojustify himself, asked Jesus, “Andwho is my neighbour?” That movewas intended to start the rationalist nitpicking about what defined neighbourand who could be excluded from thelove and justice of God. Thereby thelawyer sought to show himself to berighteous in his doings. But rememberthat the lawyer sought to test Jesus’mettle, even to “try” Jesus, so thelawyer’s move was not just personaland pragmatic. Rather, it is what theexperts in the law were engaged in astheir collective life-work at the time ofJesus. As experts, they were busyseeking to define the limits of thepeople of God to whom the provisionsof Torah, in their view, applied. Muchthe same is going on today as

economists, social experts, andpoliticians consider who it isappropriate to bale out as theeconomy goes down the gurgler.Neither the metaphysics nor theeconomics of jubilee seem rational. So,in asking “Who is my neighbour?”the lawyer sought to identify therational limits of jubilee. He may havebeen the prototypical economicrationalist!

Endnotes1. Mt 26:11; Mk 14:7; Jn 12:8.2. Cf. Mt 5:14-16, compare Is 42:6-ff and Is61:1-2ff; also Lk 4:16-27ff.3. Arguably the jubilee theme-implyingpassage, Matthew 6:19-34, reflects Jesus’general understanding of wealth and God’sgracious material provision.4. The deep paradox is that Jesus himselfwas far from wealthy; he identified with thepoor. Thus, the gospel writers in seeing thewoman’s extravagant act as predictivelymarking Jesus for his ignominious deathand burial, pictured her as being ennoblingtowards someone poor, providing him witha dignity and restoration in his death whichit – by its crushing character – was hell-bentupon denying him. A deep subtext in thegospel writers’ understanding of thewoman’s anointing of Jesus is that theirreaders should see, in him, the poorrestored, by extravagant love, to dignity.5. Cf. Lk 10:25-376. By denying the call, we deny ourselves theblessing to which the call is integral, andvice versa.7. The matter of the role of obligation, andthus the question whether or not a gift canbe given, is relevant to, but beyond thescope of this discussion. Jacques Derridahas famously investigated the aporias, orpuzzles, that afflict notions such as giving,the provision of hospitality, and thedynamics of forgiving. In works such as,Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money (trans.Kamuf, Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1992) and “Hostipitality” in Angelaki:

Journal of the Theoretical Humanities (Vol. 5,Number 3, Dec 2000), Derrida argued thatwith respect to notions such as gift, andhospitality, that the condition of theirpossibility is also the condition of theirimpossibility. It seems that it is impossibleto give without immediately entering into acircle of exchange and obligation thatreveals the gift as a debt, something to be

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this view.The appendices contain a

fascinating collection of extra-biblical material on the subject, forexample “Where Jesus agreed anddisagreed with Shammai andHillel” and “A brief history ofdoctrines on divorce andremarriage”.

Discussion of the biblicalmaterial includes a whole chapteron “’God hates divorce’ – slogan orscripture?” and an appendix on“Translations of Malachi 2:16”.

Several free articles – includingBarbara Roberts’ article outliningthe reasons many women stay inabusive marriages – are availableon her websitewww.notunderbondage.com.

John Brinsley is a retired minister ofthe Presbyterian Church.

Endnotes continued from page 41

“returned”. Hence, Derrida exegeted anirresolvable paradox – for a gift to be receivedas a gift, it must not appear as a gift, since itsmere appearance as gift identifies it in thecycle of debt and repayment. A helpfulresponse to Derrida, which contends that agift can in fact be given, is provided by JohnMilbank’s essay titled, “Can a gift be given?Prolegomena to a Future TrinitarianMetaphysic” in Rethinking Metaphysics, ed. L.G. Jones and S. E. Fowl Oxford: BlackwellPublishers, 1995, 119–61. Milbank’s responseis notable in a number of ways that comportwith the biblical emphasis, not the least ofwhich is Milbank’s avoidance of Lockeannotions of possession.8. Cf. Lk 10:289. Although the Samaritans were rejectedat its inception by post-exilic Judaism, theSamaritans recognise the five books ofTorah and only them (in their Samaritanversion, edited in the 2nd century BCE). TheSamaritans, who continue today as a sect,hold a number of key beliefs, some incommon with the core Jewish beliefs, whichmust derive from early times: belief in oneGod, in Moses as the prophet, the authorityof the Torah. Samaritans also hold, incontrast to Jews, that Mt Gerizim is theplace appointed by God for sacrifice, in theday of judgement and recompense, and inthe return of Moses as Taheb (the “restorer”).The origins of the Samaritans is uncertain– it

is reasonable to see them as decedents of themixture of new inhabitants whomEsarhaddon, the king of Assyria, broughtfrom Babylon and elsewhere and settled inthe cities of Samaria (circa 677 BCE),instead of the original Israelite inhabitantswhom Sargon (721 BCE) had removed intocaptivity (cf. 2 Kgs 17:24; also Ez 4:2, 9,10). These peoples intermarried with the fewJews still remaining in the land, graduallyabandoning their idolatry and adopted thecore monotheism of Israel. But, after theirreturn from the captivity in Babylon, theJews of Jerusalem refused to allow theSamaritans to take part with them inrebuilding the temple, and hence sprang upan open enmity between them.Consequently the Samaritans erected a rivaltemple on Mount Gerizim.10. Cf. Lk 10: 2911. Cf. Lev 25:32-34.12. “But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave noinheritance; the Lord God of Israel is theirinheritance, as he said to them.” (Joshua13:33). This is a rather different reason givenfor this exception than the one indicated inGenesis 49:5-7.13. See some indication of this in Leviticus25:32-34.14. Cf. Num 18:21-32.15. The so-called Lord’s prayer reflects thisin both its Matthean and Lucan versions. Cf.Mt 6:12ff; Lk 11:4ff.16. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity:

An Essay on Exteriority, trans. AlphonsoLingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne UniversityPress, 1969), 172.17. Many scholars are sceptical that thejubilee of Leviticus 25 was ever practised inIsrael. There is a distinct absence of biblicalevidence, therefore it is difficult to tellwhether or not jubilee was practised orwhether or not it was an ideal not fullycarried out; cf. Roland de Vaux, Ancient

Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York, NY:McGraw-Hill, 1961), 176-177. However,scholars, such as John Howard Yoder andSharon Ringe contend that the possible non-practice of jubilee, of course, does not countagainst it being a major conception thatinformed both the social critique of theprophets and the concrete shape of Jesus’proclamation of the inauguration of thekingdom of God. However, Nehemiah 10:31evidences thought for the practice of thesabbath year. Further, there is evidence thatjust before the time of Jesus, the practice ofthe seventh year of release – implying thatthe issue of the related practice of jubilee –had indeed become a practical matter. A

record – in the treatise Gittin of the Mishnas –dating from 1st century BCE evidences thelegal avoidance of jubilee imperatives,doubtless devised by 1st century BCElawyers! The regulation is referred to by theterm “prozbul” which is probably derivedfrom the Greek, pros boulei, an actionformalised before a council, or court. Theidea was that deeds of debt could be lodgedwith courts as the seventh year of releaseapproached, thus enabling the court to actfor the creditor as a debt collection agent torecover the debt that the sabbatical yearwould have cancelled. Alternatively, thecourt could keep the deed safe and after theyear of release the deed would becomeactive again in the hands of the creditor. Theargument was that the jubilee regulationsapplied to persons, not to institutions suchas courts. The problem the prozbul sought tosolve was that, as the year of releaseapproached, credit would be squeezed sinceincreasingly few were prepared to lend forany significant term if the debt were aboutto be written off. Although the prozbul madepossible the continuation of credit, it madea complete monkey of the idea of the year ofrelease; under the prozbul the relationship ofdebtor/creditor continued uninterrupted.The prozbul, is attributed rabbi Hillel theElder (c.110BCE-10CE). Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prozbul [25September 2008].

The existence of the prozbul indicatesthat probably there had been some realattempt to enact jubilee in the timeimmediately prior to Jesus (cf. John HowardYoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit AgnusNoster 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdmans, 1994), 64-66. Sharon H. Ringe,Jesus, Liberation and the Biblical Jubilee: Images

for Ethics and Christology [Philadelphia, PA:Fortress Press, 1985], 21). Maybe jubileeremained merely a thought or a proposal,but the related idea of a sabbatical year ofrelease – whatever the details – was aserious enough matter to have raised theproblems which the prozbul sought to solve.Certainly, we may surmise that Jesusimplacably opposed the prozbul anddirected much of his stinging critique of thePharisees (cf. for example Mk 7:1-13ff.) onaccount of it (cf. Yoder, 65).18. Cf. Lk 10: 28

Gavin Drew