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.
* * *
A man of Kenyan descent was walking down the road when he was set upon by those who wanted to take the fruits of his labor. Because his skin was dark, he was so obviously different from their own pale skin that they had no qualms with taking from him. In their eyes, his skin marked him as inferior. After stealing his things, they beat him and left him for dead.
Now it so happened that members of the Dora Milaje were traveling the same road. But after discerning that the man was not Wakandan, they moved on. Their responsibility is to the king and the country of Wakanda. So this man is neither their responsibility, nor can they bring him back and risk him learning about their country.
The king's cousin happened along next. He was enraged when he saw how the man had been treated. He immediately ran off to find the men that had done this so that he might beat them and otherwise treat them the way they had treated the other man. He wanted them to know what it was like to be beaten and left for dead, for them to be powerless and helpless.
Finally, a member of the River Tribe happened along. She immediately had compassion on the man and went to bind his wounds. She carried him to a safe place where his wounds could be healed. Then she sought out his people so that she could provide them with medicines and knowledge that would enable them to become more self-sufficient and to protect themselves from future abuses.
Which one treated this man as a neighbor?
* * *
Over the course of the film, T'Challa learns a valuable lesson about what it means to be neighbor and what it means to be king. There is a scene included in the credits of T'Challa addressing the UN. In his speech, he shares exactly what he has learned about both.
"Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We cannot. We must not. We will work to be an example of how we as brothers and sisters on this earth should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis, the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe."
He lays out exactly what he has come to understand about being neighbor to one another and how that is to be lived out in the world. Like Jesus, he sees that the divisions we people have created, the minor differences that make us different, are far less important than our shared humanity.
But of course, like the young lawyer in Luke, the UN still needs to test the limits - “With all due respect, King T'Challa, what can a nation of farmers have to offer the rest of the world?”
No matter how much truth there is in what T'Challa has said, the world still perceives certain people as less then. We refuse to acknowledge the lessons that are there to be learned from those we consider other, inferior, beneath us. As T'Challa smiles knowingly, knowing the secret of exactly what his country has to offer, it is also bittersweet. Because in the end, the world will listen to T'Challa only because of what Wakanda has to offer and not because of the wisdom he has shown.
And sadly, too many of us Christians do exactly the same thing with Jesus.