Recent comments by presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann have stirred up the discussion about gay marriage once again. While speaking to a group of high school…
30
May
2012
Ray Carroll
The Author
Ray Carroll
I am author of the book, "Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World" from Civitas Press. I also contributed an essay to “The Practice of Love: Real Stories of Living Into the Kingdom of God,” under my pseudonym Arthur Dimmesdale. By trade, I am a certified athletic trainer.
I am keenly interested in the theme of redemption and seeing it play out in the Christian community. I'm also intrigued how tragedy affects Christians and how we view it in relationship with the cross. My theology is somewhere between Asahel Nettleton and Bruce Ware.
I'm originally from Arkansas but currently reside in Western Kentucky. I am a husband to my beautiful wife Allison, and a father to three.
I remember the touching story of the “Good” Samaritan growing up in Sunday School. Jesus told it in response to a question asked him – “Who is my neighbor?” Dude gets beat up while traveling home. He’s left for dead by the side of the road. A priest and a Levite both pass him by and ignore the heck out of him.
The third man who passes by is a Samaritan. As a child, we learned that we should all be like that Samaritan and help people in need as the teacher pasted the little flannel picture of the Good Samaritan on the board.
Then I went to Seminary. I remember the class well. It was hermenutics taught by Dr. Robert Stein. His first statement was, “Where does the Savior ever call the Samaritan ‘good’?”
Oh, snap. Never noticed that. He then informed us of how the Jewish audience hearing the parable would have been aghast hearing that a Samaritan would have been the one who had stopped to help in the first place. In those days, the Samaritans were viewed as “half-breeds.” They were ascended from the Assyrians and had married Jewish people. Many Jews hated them.
Therefore, for Jesus to put a Samaritan as the hero of the story was a stunner. It offended his largely Jewish audience. Especially when he asked the man who had posed the original question, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (Luke 10:36 ESV) The man couldn’t even bring himself to say the word “Samaritan.” Instead, he said, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Over the past two years, I’ve been trying to find my place in the world after I fell from ministry. There were days I didn’t want to go into Wal-Mart or Kroger for fear of seeing someone I might know. I thought being in public was a disgrace to myself. Over time, this feeling went away as I grasped the full forgiveness of God.
I did struggle with how to help other people. I wanted to minister. I always kept the words of Hershael York from my book in the back of my mind, “Your repentance has to be more notorious than your sin.” So, for the past two years, I’ve been an ear for fallen pastors, tried to keep my head above water, and tried (sometimes on target) to do the right thing.
Two things happened recently that might sound like a humble brag, but they’re not. They struck a chord in me.
Two weeks ago, I was driving down a long stretch of interstate and saw a car broken down. Now, my mother, God rest her soul, always told me to never stop in such a situation. I can hear her now, “It’s a trap!” Or maybe that was Admiral Ackbar. Anyway, something within me told me to stop for this 1987 Buick Century.
I got out and five people got out. They looked worse for wear. One was on a cell phone. I asked them if a tow was coming. No, apparently, they couldn’t get a tow. The car was overheated. I’ll be honest, they didn’t smell too great. Amazingly, enough, I had a brand new container of coolant in my car and I went to get it. The car still didn’t start. The guy who was there said, “We need some tape to tape up this pipe.” Amazingly, again, I had trainer’s tape (for my job) and got some.
While he was taping, I began talking to a young woman. She said, “Thank you for stopping. We’ve been here for an hour. 
No one has stopped. Five people have honked. Even a state trooper. I just got out of the hospital after having a miscarriage.”
The guy said, “I’m done, let’s start it up!” It started. Every one in the car hugged me. And I hugged back, choking back tears.
A few days later, I was in the IGA parking lot and I swear it was the same 1987 Buick Century. It was a young couple and they pulled up next to me. The young woman was in the drivers seat and her husband was leaned back in the passenger seat, seemingly embarrassed. She said, “I wouldn’t normally asked, but we’re on empty. We have no money. If you just have a dollar, please.”
I said, “I’m sorry,” as I opened my wallet. “I don’t carry cash.” I went into the store and couldn’t stop thinking about them. I could almost hear God say, “Get them money.” I got to the checkout and said out loud to the cashier (who must have thought I was nuts) “I can get money off my debit card!” She said, “Yes, you can, sir.”
I ran back out to the parking lot but didn’t see them. But I turned to my right and they were sitting there talking to another woman who was trying to get away from them. I ran over to them and gave them the cash. She said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Yes ma’am! God be with you.” She yelled out the loudest, “Hallelujah!”
I looked over and her husband was smiling and crying.
That’s when it hit me. I was the Samaritan. I was the half-breed. Rejected by many, but still very useful to God. Surrounded by neighbors in need.
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I’m always having to pull myself up short and tell myself that we only need have His eyes to see such folk. Sadly, I need more practice as I often fall into rationalising why I didn’t step up and help after the fact. Thanks for the nudge.
Buzz,
You’re right. I guess the thing that put me over the top is when I realized I wasn’t any better than anyone else. None of us consciously think that, but I try to think, “what if that were me? Because someday it might be.”
Thanks for the comment.
Thank you for this great read, Ray. It was only after I lost my standing in the community and destroyed my reputation that I began to see what it truly meant to serve others. So much of it before was “acting” like a “good” Christian and for image, although I did not think so at the time. I took the gifts of the spirit to be behavior modification rules. When I was an outcast, I noticed the good feeling produced the giving rather than the giving making me feel good. It was an overflowing, just spillage of God’s abundance, and thus no boast. There was no sacrifice to it, no sense of loss, pain, or inconvenience. I had been gracefully emptied of worth and esteem, which allowed God to act unimpeded.
The point you brought out about the man being unabled to even say aloud the word Samaritan is something I like to bring out as well. But imagine if this story had not made the Gospels and the sunday sermon was on the other question he asked: what do we need for eternal life? If the preacher merely invented a similar story with the moral and instruction of just love your neighbor, you know there would be an outcry in most churches today for several reasons (especially if one substituted a Muslim).
Great thoughts Tom, and thank you for sharing. My hermeneutics professor shared several things about this story. He said, “Imagine if Jesus had told this story in Nazi Germany and the Samaritan had been a Jew. Or imagine if it had taken place during the Civil Rights movement in the South and the Samaritan had been a black man and Christ’s audience had been white church leaders.”
The parable strikes home for all of us, especially for those who have been humbled. Thank you for your transparency, brother.
Thank you, Ray. My favorite parable, as well it should be, is the Prodigal Son and next the Good Samaritan, although as you pointed out, Jesus never said “good”–and that got me thinking more on this story.
As I alluded to in my other comments, what would be scandalous had this story not been in the Gospels but invented one Sunday by a preacher is the “hippie” answer to the question, “How do we gain eternal life?”: the simple love of neighbor. I have witnessed many times the attempted uncomplicated message of love bring instant resistance from learned Christians who have diligently studied scripture. And try making the priest a Baptist and the Levitt a Catholic (and switch up for the audience). A lot of fun can be had.
The question I need to ask myself is this: who is my half-bred Samaritan?
God bless, Ray, and many thanks.
Love this Ray. We’re all Samaritans.
Thanks, Jonathan. We are. Unfortunately, there are times we act like the two men who passed by on the other side of the road, but we know better. When we learn to accept our station as servants, that we are less than everyone else, that’s when we readily take on the role of the quiet Samaritan who looked for no reward or thanks. He just acted out of nature.
Recently had a post of this parable as well. Great insights! God is always at work and it’s wonderful when we can be part of His work!
Karin,
I read your inspired post. In fact, I was hesitant to write because you had done such an amazing job. But isn’t Scripture amazing? We all benefit in so many ways from it. Thank you for reading my post. I appreciate it very much.
Awwwww. I must have helped out their neighbors, because it’s the same exact experience I had a couple of weeks ago! God is good!
Tears… <3
Is it actual love or “ought to”?
“It ain’t nothing if it ain’t free, babe.” (Janis)
“The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” (Christ)
“Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness.” (Tao)
“The results are nil until we let go absolutely.” (AA)
In the verse, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the emphasis is on “as yourself”: your neighbor is yourself. Can I boast of charity for getting breakfast as I like it in a restaurant? Feeding the hungry is no different. Their need is the growl of my stomach. To give them food is my sustenance.
That is the place I yearn to be. I have had moments, I feel, of being truly and cleanly other-centered; my actions were natural and it appeared without thought for my interests or self . My left hand really did not know what the right was doing. A fruit of grace.
This helped me to see that the only thing I can sacrifice for God and others is merely that which stands in the way or diminishes what is for my greatest freedom and deepest joy in Christ. In effect, there is no sacrifice.
The sub-conscious in us all is the puppet-master: what we most often think of as choice, is an echoed command from below…righteously and unflinchingly followed. Any motivation is an impurity. All motivations are so diluted and delusional that our grandest intention is no more than lurking vanity, a “stumbling block” that appears as a paving stone to a firm path.
Yet this cycle can be broken–and that is the deeper purpose of the Twelve Step Path. To realize this purpose usually means slow torture, the steady and nearly unrelenting “necessary suffering” that comes with self-realization. There appears to be no “easier and softer way.” A good 6th and 7th Step translates, usually, into the very worst time of our lives.
Everything about life is left up in the air and the only thing that we know for sure is how badly we acted. All certainty about the sacred and profane is gone. All comforting support to faith and being is stripped away. The next moment becomes so entirely unknown and strange that we do not have the mind or will to venture a guess. The ground beneath our feet has given way to an unfathomable abyss. We hover, aloft in ambiguity and ambivalence, still only from unknowing.
Many are discouraged from remaining in this place, the well-intentioned throwing ropes, deploying boats, coming in helicopters to take us from this obvious “bad place” to the safe shore of Reason, Tradition, and Principles. Evil seems to be underfoot and gaining yards, so why not desperate measures. A soul appears ready to be lost. And it is, but not in the way assumed.
Unless intimately experienced, we tend to think it is “alcoholism raising its ugly head”; “the ego looking to take back control”; “faith assaulted”; “the failure to properly work this ‘simple program.’” All lies…if we have truly reached the threshold point of fundamental transformation. That point is free-fall.
“Good is enemy of the best.”
We all tirelessly and always work for good, as one’s perceptions dictates. It is in breaking this cycle of our estimation of doing “the next good or right thing” that salvation finally comes.
Nothing that is truly new can be understood by a consciousness that looks to compare, measure, and weigh it by past experience and text books. Give a TV to a caveman and it is firewood or a cutting tool, once broken. The incomprehension of this movement of the soul is similar.