The theme scripture for our Annual Conference early this summer was Luke 10: 25-37. Commonly called the Parable of the Good Samaritan, this passage shows Jesus being questioned by a young lawyer about what must be done to inherit eternal life. Jesus turns the question around on him to ask what the scriptures say. The young lawyer responds, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27), which Jesus says is the correct answer.
For Jesus, then, the totality of the Hebrew Scriptures (which we Christians commonly call the Old Testament) are summed up in these two phrases. But of course, as a lawyer, the young man wanted to push further to question the limits of this rule - "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responded with a story about a man attacked by bandits and left for dead and three people that encountered him afterwards. Of the three, only one helped the man. To complicate matters, that one was a foreigner from an area the Jews considered inferior. But that is the one that was neighbor to the man, because he showed compassion.
I have been wrestling with this passage for months. How am I showing compassion to my neighbor, most especially those that I would consider if not quite an enemy, definitely not a friend? As well, I have struggled with how to deal with those who claim to be Christian and yet display so little compassion towards those that are different from them.
Last weekend we watched Black Panther again. It is such a well made and enjoyable film anyway, but this time I was struck by the way certain themes in the movie parallel this passage from Luke. I started to imagine a Wakandan retelling of the story in their own context.