Who Loves?

Let’s think about the Good Samaritan story for a second and see something cool.

The story starts with the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, and the young man’s follow-up question: Who is my neighbor?

And you know the middle.  Man is beaten, left for dead.  The “holy” people pass by.  The outsider acts mercifully on the beaten man’s behalf.

Good.  

Now notice the end.  Jesus asks: “Which one of these was neighbor to the [wounded man]?  Neighbor = Helper Samaritan.

But wait!  The commandment is to love the neighbor!  If we can trust the syntax of the translation, the one who is doing the loving, then, is the beaten man!

The point, for me, is this: Robust, expansive love can begin when we are able to bear our wounds, in vulnerability, to people we trust.  In this sense then, yes, the wounded man plays an important part in the relationship.

Shall we go and do likewise?