I began writing this after hearing of the SBC's expulsion of Broadway Baptist (TX) this summer. You can read more at a fine blog by one of my former preaching profs (http://cfj-connectivity.blogspot.com/). I couldn't help but think of the irony – or maybe not – of a church called "Broadway" being excluded for not following the SBC's "narrow" way. I can only imagine the polemic sermons that ensued during the following Sundays – 'broad way' versus 'narrow way'…it's just too easy. But I digress. The point is…that we're missing the point.
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It's a funny thing about the narrow way of Jesus – there's something dangerously broad about it. If you've read the New Testament gospels you'll recall that it was the Pharisees who were often contrasted with Jesus in the gospels. The Pharisees were the keepers of the 'narrow way.' They set rules, kept boundaries and determined who should be in and out – who was 'clean' and who was 'unclean.' One of Jesus' greatest successes was in providing endless irritation to the Pharisees – "why don't your disciples wash their hands?, why do you eat with sinners?, why do you work on the Sabbath?, why are you letting that woman touch you?, etc.
The story of the 'Good Samaritan' (Luke 10) provides an excellent case in point – the 'narrow way' is strangely broad.
I've never been able to get away from the story of the 'Good Samaritan' (our textual editors implied that all other Samaritans were evil, I guess). The story, whether Jesus actually told it or not, is obviously a seminal explanation of Jesus' Gospel for Luke. The story is rife with the synoptic gospels' (Matt, Mark, Luke) theme of reversal – the victimized Jewish pilgrim is ignored by the supposed righteous priests and Levites. Their rules about cleanliness wouldn't allow them to offer mercy or assistance (note – "their" rules), or to even come across to the other side and recognize the wounded traveler. The hero in the story turns out to be one who is 'unclean' as well. The Samaritan was the wrong race, held to the wrong religion and came from the wrong part of town. From the perspective of Jesus' first-century collectivist audience, Samaritans were steaming piles of defecation marring the Palestinian landscape (or something to that effect). Yet the 'unclean' Samaritan immediately recognizes the 'unclean' wounded traveler and responds with compassion. The Samaritan takes action, takes personal interest (offering the care a family member would), and takes responsibility with his own financial resources.
The scribe wanted to know – how do I inherit eternal life? And who is my neighbor? Note that Jesus doesn't offer a list of rules, doesn't respond with a set of doctrine and theology, and certainly doesn't tell anyone here to believe in him [as lightning strikes me dead]. Jesus simply tells him what it looks like. The story of the Samaritan is like Jesus saying, "You want to know how to have eternal life? Love your neighbor! And if you want to know what that looks like, let me tell you a story…"
A story that gives answers for a lot of questions…
So what does salvation look like? One unclean person embracing another. The big picture of Jesus' life in the gospels reveals the narrow way – the strangely and rarely taken path – a radically inclusive and loving embrace of others.
What does the kingdom of God look like? What does a kingdom-bound person look like? According to Jesus, a non-believing, marginalized minority apparently.
The example Jesus gives for a loving neighbor, the kind of person who will inherit the kingdom of God, is a Samaritan. Precisely the kind of person his Jewish questioners would have seen as entirely outside of God's love…and certainly outside any sort of shared afterlife in God's presence. They were impure, ethnically mixed; they worshipped at the wrong place and in the wrong way; their theologies, philosophies and ideologies about life were flatly wrong.
Yet, Jesus made the 'good Samaritan' an icon of grace, a model of the kind of believer God was looking for. Isn't that strange? The symbol of neighbor love – the symbol of salvation – is one unclean man caring for the wounds of another. There are no propositions, no sacraments to perform, no doctrines to agree with, and no magic prayers.
In an ever more exclusivist religious era, Jesus' story of the 'good Samaritan' flies in the face of common conceptions of the 'narrow way.' Apparently the narrow way is not a narrow theology, but a unique and rare way of life – one that can be lived by Jews, Christians…and, even Samaritans.
The narrow way for Jesus seems to have a broad application. Yet, isn't that the strange message of the synoptic Gospels? One that constantly reverses the order of our expectations. It is the story of a welcoming Divinity, one who includes the excluded, embraces the outcast and breaks social and cultural mechanisms for the cause of unconditional love. The narrow way is awfully broad, and full of an incalculable amount of grace – a reality to which I am increasingly grateful. - DCN
"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise." – Luke 10:36-37 NIV
