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[PDF] Love in a Time of Climate Change by Sharon Delgado eBook [1]
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Date: 2023-07
8 Scripture: Transforming the Jericho Road
On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
In the previous four chapters, we explored the theme of creation from the perspective of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience in the context of the climate crisis. We now shift our focus and employ these same four sources of authority to illuminate our understanding of justice as we seek to develop a faithful response to climate change.
We begin with scripture. There are countless passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that emphasize social and economic justice, including the core Jewish liberation story of the Exodus, celebrated during Passover by faithful Jews throughout the centuries. This ancient story about Hebrew slaves demanding justice and escaping from Egypt’s Pharaoh has inspired many liberation struggles, including contemporary Latin American liberation movements.
The contemporary faith-based Jubilee movement, which works for the debts of poor nations to be canceled, finds its authority in the ancient call in Leviticus for a Jubilee year to be celebrated every fifty years. During the Jubilee, slaves were to be set free, debts canceled, land returned to its original owners to prevent wealthy landowners from accumulating large land holdings, and fields left fallow to restore the fruitfulness of the land (Lev 25:8–13). Immigrant rights groups point to passages that demand protection for sojourners. “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” (Lev 19:34 RSV) is a biblical mandate that informs our treatment of migrants as climate change makes various regions uninhabitable.
The Hebrew prophets continually urged the people of Israel to repent. They prophesied that disaster would come upon the whole community if they didn’t reject idolatry and establish justice in the land. They held the priests particularly responsible for leading the people astray, and challenged the rich because of their oppression of the poor. They admonished the people against idolatry, as when Jeremiah said, “And I will utter my judgments against them, for all their wickedness in forsaking me; they have made offerings to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands” (Jer 1:16). This admonition takes on renewed meaning in an age dominated by technologies that many believe are essential. Likewise, the prophetic demand for justice is still relevant today: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8).
Passages related to justice are also found throughout the New Testament, beginning with the infancy narratives in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which point to Jesus as one who would raise up the lowly and challenge the powers of this world. Several of Jesus’s parables emphasize justice, including the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) and the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25:31–46). According to these stories, God’s judgment is based on whether or not we act with compassion and justice toward the poor.
All four gospels portray Jesus as taking a strong stand for justice. The central conflict in his life was strikingly political. He directly challenged the representatives of the Jewish religious establishment and practiced non-cooperation with oppressive laws. Healing was a primary aspect of his ministry, and he broke the Law repeatedly by healing on the Sabbath. Jesus refused to be bound by the purity codes that separated so-called “clean” from “unclean” people. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, directly confronting the corrupt economic system of his time. The Sadducees and Pharisees, who collaborated with Rome by keeping order among the Jews, agreed that Jesus’s death was necessary for the sake of national security. “If we let him go on like this,” argued the high priest Caiaphas, “everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation” (John 11:48). Jesus was put to death because he was considered a threat to the interlocking political, economic, and religious institutions that made up the domination system of his day.
The tragic scenes of Jesus’s death give way in Acts and the Epistles to a note of triumph, as writers portray a resurrected people living in the presence of the Risen Christ and motivated by the Holy Spirit. These early Christians, too, challenged the governing authorities and refused to submit to the Roman Empire, as willing to face their own death as Jesus was.
Although some New Testament passages were written to maintain order and establish hierarchies in the church, many are liberating. Some include a call to faithfulness in the face of ongoing oppression by the rulers of this world. The spiritual struggle against the powers and principalities is described in Ephesians: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). The ruling institutional powers that dominate our world are generally at cross-purposes with the loving will of God. Conventional wisdom often points toward death, not life. Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds . . .” (Rom 12:2). In spite of the human-constructed systems of this world, the Spirit can be trusted to give us the insight and strength to follow wherever Jesus leads.
The whole scope and tenor of scripture affirms the centrality of compassion and justice as expressions of divine love. Although the above passages and many others shed light on the theme of justice, our primary text in this chapter is the parable of the Good Samaritan, the well-loved story that challenges us to be neighbors to those who are in distress (Luke 10:25–37). All the actors for high drama and intrigue are here: robbers who attack a traveler, an unnamed victim left to die in the road, self-righteous religious leaders who pass him by, and a despised Samaritan who saves the victim and becomes the hero of Jesus’s story. Using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to explore the theme of justice in this parable will enable us to expand our understanding of what it means to love our neighbors in this time of climate change.
Who Is My Neighbor?
Luke frames this parable in an interaction between Jesus and a lawyer who puts him to the test by asking, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (In a parallel story in Mark 10 the question is “What is the greatest commandment?”) Here Jesus directs the question back to the lawyer by asking him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read?” The lawyer answers, “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.” Jesus responds, “You have answered right. Do this and you will live.” But the lawyer will not leave it at that. Because he desires to justify himself, he asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Who is my neighbor? This is a perennial question—whom should I include within my circle of concern? We see images of profound suffering taking place around the world that far surpass our ability to respond. We want to be compassionate, but we also must be realistic. Where do our responsibilities lie? Who is my neighbor? When the lawyer asks the question, Jesus responds by telling the following story.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So, likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. (Luke 10:30–35, RSV)
This parable clarifies what love of God and neighbor requires. It is also a call to justice. It contains a critique of people like the priest and Levite who function within respectable roles in unjust systems that oppress others. The story includes a surprising twist, for it is a despised Samaritan who rescues the wounded man. This unlikely hero has compassion on the victim, rescues him, and treats him with extravagant care.
In The Power of Parable, John Dominic Crossan claims that the term “good Samaritan” has become a “redundant cliché,” as if it simply means one person helping another. People in the first century, however, would have heard “good Samaritan” as a “cultural paradox—a social contradiction in terms.” This is “a story that challenges listeners to think long and hard about their social prejudices, their cultural presumptions, and yes, even their mo...
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