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Good Samaritan in African American Culture
Brad Ronnell Braxton

African American slaves transformed the "book religion" of the white slave holders into profound comments on their own social experience. Luke's Jesus places liberation at the top of his agenda. For that reason, many African Americans have always had a certain love for this Gospel.

African American preachers have drawn strong parallels between Samaritans and their own community. Both groups were considered racially inferior by the ruling culture. Both groups were objects of bitter feelings. They lift the Samaritan as an example for commendable behavior.

In the face of oppression, African Americans have found great solace in Jesus’ story. Here was a man from society's margins who stopped on a dangerous road. He helped a traveler who appeared to be the other, but in reality was the brother.

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African Americans have been keenly interested in the social relations in biblical texts. They have looked for insights into how modern day African Americans should guide their own social realities.

This interest can be traced to the period of American slavery. African American slaves transformed the "book religion" of the white slave holders. It became a profound comment on their own situation.

African Americans have found great solace in many stories in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke 4.18-19, Jesus declares:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

The Lukan Jesus places liberation at the top of his agenda in this opening sermon. For that reason, many African Americans have always had a certain love for this Gospel.

African American preachers have seen the Good Samaritan story as a biting critique of people's fear of foreigners and of rigid forms of religion. Also, they have seen Jesus as exploding the ruling social norms of the day.

Historically, the ill will between blacks and whites in America has always been a useful point of connection, because social tension is at the heart of this text. African American preachers have drawn strong parallels between Samaritans and their own community. Both groups were considered racially inferior by the ruling culture. Both groups were objects of bitter feelings.

In spite of his social status, the Samaritan in the text acted in a commendable manner. Many African American preachers have lifted up the Samaritan as an example for behavior. This example applies not only to some far-off time and setting. It applies now - to the real world of racism, second-class citizenship, police brutality, and economic exploitation.

For African Americans this parable has been a weapon in the warfare for human rights and equality. It has served as a clarion call to act in an ethically responsible way, even if the wounded victim on the road is not part of one’s social group. Even more, if the person is the oppressor.

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Historically there has been a horizontal aspect to African American biblical interpretation. When African Americans interpret Scripture, the question is not only "What does this text tell readers about the vertical relationship between God and humanity?" but also, and perhaps more importantly, the question is "What does this text tell readers about the horizontal relationships between and among people?" Moreover, African Americans have been keenly interested in the horizontal, social relations in biblical texts, and they have looked specifically for the insights that such texts yield concerning how contemporary African Americans should navigate their own social realities and relationships.

This interest in the horizontal or social dimensions of biblical meaning and this desire to use biblical stories as analogues for contemporary experience can be traced to the period of American slavery. African American slaves transformed the "book religion" of the white slaveholders into meaningful commentaries on their own social experience. Slave interpretation did not rest with the simple exposition of what had happened in a biblical narrative. Slaves used biblical stories to illumine their social experience. In many instances biblical stories, images, and motifs became a language or rhetorical figure by which slaves told and retold their stories.

Social pragmatism has been and is a salient feature of African American biblical interpretation. Abstract, purely doctrinal readings of Scripture that have little or nothing to do with the pulse of life have never been characteristic of African American appropriation of Scripture. Traditionally, if the Bible were to have any sway in the African American community, it had to speak to communal as well as to personal needs; it had to address social as well as psychological problems.

In light of this socially pragmatic focus, one should not find it difficult to understand why African American readers of Christian Scripture have flocked to and found great solace in many of the stories in the Gospel of Luke. Whereas African Americans have been leery of Paul because of his seeming ambivalence on the issue of slavery, they have a fondness for Luke’s presentation of Jesus. According to the narrator of the third Gospel, Jesus’ initial sermon in his hometown had liberation as its ostensible theme. In Luke 4.18–19, Jesus declares:

The Lukan Jesus places liberation at the top of his agenda in his inaugural sermon, and for that reason, many African Americans have always had a certain affinity for the third Gospel.

One of the central motifs of the third Gospel is that of reversal (e.g. Luke 6.20–26). In the Lukan narrative world, Jesus constantly alerts his followers to the reality that things are not always what they seem and things will not always remain as they are. When Jesus gives missionary instructions to his disciples in Luke 10.1-12, he tells them to proclaim the message that the kingdom of God has come near. The approach and in-breaking of the kingdom signal the demolition of various social taboos and social barriers.

There is no story in Luke that more directly confronts the issue of social barriers than the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus or the Lukan narrator could not have chosen a more controversial (and therefore effective) way to address this issue than by making the protagonist of this story a Samaritan. In antiquity the antipathy between the Samaritans and the Jews was well-known (e.g. Ezra 4.1–5 and the Jewish historian Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, 9.277–91).

Any number of factors may have contributed to the schism between the Samaritans and the Jews. There are intimations in 2 Kings 17 that the Samaritans were of mixed ethnicity, and possibly this fueled Jewish antipathy towards them. Another explanation is that the schism occurred when the Samaritans built their own sanctuary to the Lord on Mount Gerizim, an act that some Jews may have considered a slight against the Jerusalem temple. The scholarly debate concerning the origin of the Samaritans and the source of the tension between them and the Jews continues. Yet even without being aware of the quagmire of historical problems relating to the relationship between the Samaritans and the Jews, there has been a general perception in African American Christian oral tradition (which is most visibly and readily manifest in African American preaching) that the Samaritans and the Jews represented two groups that were undeniably at odds with each other. In response to the query of a lawyer and sensing the presence of a "teachable" moment, Jesus brought these two groups face to face on a dangerous highway somewhere between Jerusalem and Jericho.

This Lukan parable has fueled in particular the imagination of African American preachers who have seen in the events of the story a scathing critique of xenophobia and rigid forms of religion and a prophetic attempt on the part of Jesus to explode the prevailing social categories of the day. When dealing with this passage, African American preachers have not had to labor assiduously in order to help their congregants imagine the immense social tension that existed between the Samaritans and the Jews. No historical imagination has been necessary. The antipathy between blacks and whites in America before and after the antebellum period, during the Jim Crow era, and even in the 1990s has always provided for African American interpreters a useful and compelling analogue of the social tension inherent in this text.

According to the text, a certain man falls among thieves. The man has no name and is given no social standing of note. He is just a certain man, an everyday traveler who falls upon perilous times. Representatives of the official religious institution, who are too proud, too important, too busy, or maybe just too scared, see the traveler in distress but tragically pass on the other side. A Samaritan, the unlikely protagonist and hero, a racial anomaly whom the official representatives of the state religion would more than likely have regarded as a pagan, shatters all codes of expected behavior and exemplifies great compassion.

In the history of the interpretation of this passage, some early church interpreters such as Augustine were fascinated with textual details such as the Samaritan pouring oil and wine in the man’s wounds and taking the wounded traveler to an inn ( Luke 10.34). These exegetes attempted to allegorize even the most minute details of this story. In the main, African American exegetes of this passage have not been so interested in allegorizing these narrative details as they have been in using the Samaritan-Jew relationship in this passage as a type or an analogue for the appropriate ethical response of African Americans (who, historically like the Samaritan in the text, have been marginalized by the dominant culture on racial grounds) to those who are in distress (especially when the person in distress may belong to the group responsible for their oppression).

African American interpreters and especially African American preachers have drawn strong parallels in their exposition of this text between Samaritans and African Americans. Both groups were considered racially inferior by the dominant culture. Both groups were the object of bitter sentiments from the dominant culture. In spite of the marginalized social status, the Samaritan in the text acted in an ethically responsible and commendable manner. Many African American preachers have lifted the Samaritan as a paradigm for behavior not in some abstract, hypothetical "spiritual" realm but in the sordid world of dehumanizing racism, complete with second-class citizenship, police brutality, and economic exploitation. An example will concretize the point concerning how this passage has been utilized to offer commentary on (African) American social experiences and oppression. For this example, I turn to the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the night prior to his assassination, King, who had traveled to Memphis, Tennessee to protest on behalf of sanitation workers, delivered one of his most moving speeches. In light of what would happen to him the next day, King seemed truly clairvoyant. In one section of the speech King made an extended allusion to the Good Samaritan parable. Anyone familiar with King’s rhetorical practices and with the black preaching tradition that furnished his rhetorical brilliance will know that such allusions are characteristic of black preaching. In order that one may appreciate the richness of King’s allusion to this parable, I shall quote a large portion of this speech. King remarked:

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn’t stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to determine why the priest and the Levite didn’t stop…

But I am going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It’s possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road… It’s a winding, meandering road. It’s really conducive for ambushing. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it’s possible that they felt that the man was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them over there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

That’s the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need what will happen to me?" "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to them?" That’s the question.

In this extended quotation of a skillful African American preacher, the good Samaritan parable became a rhetorical figure by which the details of the biblical narrative and the narrative of the American Civil Rights Movement were adroitly woven together to offer ethical admonition concerning the responsibilities and risks that those who work for human justice must accept.

For King and countless other African American interpreters, exposition of this text has not centered around the scholarly debate concerning the differences between parables and allegories; nor has the focus been on how this parable fits into the overall narrative framework of the third Gospel. Rather, African American interpreters of this parable have realized, to use the words of Joachim Jeremias, that Jesus’ parables are "weapons of controversy. Every one of them calls for an answer on the spot." For African Americans this parable has been a weapon in the warfare for human rights and equality, and it has served as a clarion call to African Americans to act in an ethically responsible way, even if the wounded victim on the road is not part of one’s social group or even more, is a card-carrying member of the group responsible for the oppression. The social implications of this parable have captured the imagination of African American exegetes. If I may paraphrase J. D. Crossan, the parables of Jesus in general and the parable of the Good Samaritan in particular shatter the mirrors in which our realities are reflected, and the reality shattered by this parable is that the showing of mercy and the concept of neighborliness should be circumscribed by racial or national boundaries.

Though the foundational documents of America such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution contain the rhetoric of equality, African Americans unfortunately have discovered the wide chasm between rhetoric and reality. In the face of multifaceted oppression, African Americans have found great solace in Jesus’ story about a racially-marginalized man who stops on a dangerous road to assist a victimized traveler who in appearance was the other but who in reality was the brother.

Having recognized that the answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?" is often limited to and by national, racial, or class loyalties, Jesus knew that nothing short of a scandal would explode old categories so as to make room for new ones. A story about a Samaritan who showed mercy provided such a scandal. In an America bedeviled by racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism, once again the answers to the question "Who is my neighbor?" have become provincial. Perhaps nothing short of another scandal will liberate contemporary Americans from their provincialism. As in biblical antiquity, so too in (post)modernity, the scandal is the belief that the neighbor is anyone whom we encounter or who encounters us upon life’s journey.

Notes

Admittedly, there is always an inherent danger in using Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example for fear of perpetuating "the Great Black Man Myth," that belief that persists in the dominant (white) culture that Martin King was one of the few, if not the only, truly great persons that African American culture has produced. A corollary of this myth is the belief that if the dominant culture has wrestled with Martin King’s legacy it somehow has dealt adequately with the African American legacy. Notwithstanding the dangers, I use King as an example because he was one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most eloquent and visible spokespersons. Moreover, since King was a preacher who was unashamedly indebted to and facile with the Black preaching tradition, his speeches were saturated with biblical allusions. With great ease, King intermingled his words and the words and images of the Bible.