Love this. I don't believe Jesus wasted his time or breath on morality tales--he lived his morality tales. Always I ask of the parables, what is underneath, broader, more challenging and beautiful than an easy read and dim understanding would offer.
I like this a great deal. It feels like a subversively insightful approach to a parable that has lost its potency through over-familiarity and misunderstanding. Thank you
David, after reading Bog-and Aster this morning, I came here looking for one of the Illich videos. Now, I'm pretty sure I read this post before, but clearly I missed this fairly life-altering statement: "States love to fix things down in constitutions and laws and borders. Religious and social groups tend to require a way of managing what's inside and what's outside. But if there is such a thing as a messianic community, in the image of this parable, then it would be something that unmakes and relativises itself as it goes. It would be something unmanageable and unmappable. It would be a start to say that its borders are unknown." And I'm happy.
I've also just read Andrew of Bog Down and Aster's last essay. What an extraordinary thing!
This old thread you've dug up feels very resonant to our Romans discussions, where pistis (good faith/relationality) cannot be managed by law but only by faithful improvisation.
The disruptive possibilities to state, existing hierarchies and social traditions, of becoming a 'neighbour' to the 'stranger' are clear. It reads like the 'good cop' partner to the 'bad cop' of Matthew 10:34-36 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."
In Taoist paths we talk about one principle having both a 'civil' and a 'martial' way of being seen or applied. Reading the NT with these eyes in my fifties feels very different from how I learned it as a child, which is unsettling, challenging. As it should be.
You're right, I think the bad cop text does correlate. It makes me think of NT holy spirit narratives, where the spirit makes strangers comprehensible to each other, as at Pentecost, but makes ingroups incomprehensible to each other ("everyone is speaking in tongues and no one can understand each other!" Complains Paul..)
Is it really free though? The problem is that you can't choose everyone, and in some cases you cannot *not* choose someone who makes you a traitor to others. It's a paradox: a free yet constrained and sometimes inevitable, predestined choice to love this or that individual. The circle is theoretically open to all, but in concrete reality it never can be.
Viewed this way, the parable of the Good Samaritan is a setup for tragedy because the messianic community is an impossible, utopian dream. Maybe that's why the West transferred the dream of radical filial love or Christian agape to eros. (The Jungian and mythographer Robert Johnson said something like this happened in the middle ages.) The love potion, the fated lovers, the couples transgressing tribal lines are similar to the Samaritan. We still really want to believe it is possible for these relationships to work. Instead of the Samaritan, it's Isolde, Guinevere, and Juliet. In the background, the warring tribes in their stories are a constant.
Yes, you beautifully describe the ache in this move. A properly free choice to love the Other always carries some price in a world of managed boundaries. I suppose the messianic figure embodies the paradox in being both liberator and suffering servant... holds the door of redemptive treason open, on one hand, but is aware of the world's judgment on the other. This aches. Truly said.
Thanks for reminding me of these insights from Illich -- I hadn’t really received them as fully before. Other reading and events may have helped recently. So good to see Dougald and David Cayley together too! Thanks for helping that happen.
In Works of Love, Soren Kierkegaard has three individual chapters, on the "shall", "the neighbour" and the "you", of "You shall love your neighbour as yourself". He says things like "Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally secured against every change, eternally made free in blessed independence, eternally and happily secured against despair."
As with others here, I'm really pleased to have been introduced to Ivan Illich. Many thanks indeed David.
Thank you for introducing me to Ivan Illich. He sounds as if he was a rare voice of integrity and clarity in a world ever-descending into confusion and darkness, rather like Ammon Hennacy a generation earlier with his one-man revolution. Interesting take on the Samaritan story too. I'm not sure I fully understand his interpretation, but I certainly agree it is not a moralistic story about good behaviour. I wrote my own reflection on this a couple of years ago (tobiasmayer.uk/kjv365/reflection?291). I hear it as a story (a prediction even) of a world turned upside down. Good to see you here, David, and I look forward to more of your thoughts.
Love this. I don't believe Jesus wasted his time or breath on morality tales--he lived his morality tales. Always I ask of the parables, what is underneath, broader, more challenging and beautiful than an easy read and dim understanding would offer.
Lovely to see you here Lee. Blessings to you and Sam
To you as well, David.
I like this a great deal. It feels like a subversively insightful approach to a parable that has lost its potency through over-familiarity and misunderstanding. Thank you
Yes to de-familiarising things. Thanks for reading Jez.
David, after reading Bog-and Aster this morning, I came here looking for one of the Illich videos. Now, I'm pretty sure I read this post before, but clearly I missed this fairly life-altering statement: "States love to fix things down in constitutions and laws and borders. Religious and social groups tend to require a way of managing what's inside and what's outside. But if there is such a thing as a messianic community, in the image of this parable, then it would be something that unmakes and relativises itself as it goes. It would be something unmanageable and unmappable. It would be a start to say that its borders are unknown." And I'm happy.
I've also just read Andrew of Bog Down and Aster's last essay. What an extraordinary thing!
This old thread you've dug up feels very resonant to our Romans discussions, where pistis (good faith/relationality) cannot be managed by law but only by faithful improvisation.
The disruptive possibilities to state, existing hierarchies and social traditions, of becoming a 'neighbour' to the 'stranger' are clear. It reads like the 'good cop' partner to the 'bad cop' of Matthew 10:34-36 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."
In Taoist paths we talk about one principle having both a 'civil' and a 'martial' way of being seen or applied. Reading the NT with these eyes in my fifties feels very different from how I learned it as a child, which is unsettling, challenging. As it should be.
Dougald sent me your way. I am glad he did.
You're right, I think the bad cop text does correlate. It makes me think of NT holy spirit narratives, where the spirit makes strangers comprehensible to each other, as at Pentecost, but makes ingroups incomprehensible to each other ("everyone is speaking in tongues and no one can understand each other!" Complains Paul..)
Does the Taoist civil/martial distinction mean something like a relational application in contrast to state force, or something else?
Really good to connect with you Caroline. Thank you for reaching out.
Exactly that. Yes.
And also, relationship / survival, the home / the polis, and sometimes just plain love / war.
Is it really free though? The problem is that you can't choose everyone, and in some cases you cannot *not* choose someone who makes you a traitor to others. It's a paradox: a free yet constrained and sometimes inevitable, predestined choice to love this or that individual. The circle is theoretically open to all, but in concrete reality it never can be.
Viewed this way, the parable of the Good Samaritan is a setup for tragedy because the messianic community is an impossible, utopian dream. Maybe that's why the West transferred the dream of radical filial love or Christian agape to eros. (The Jungian and mythographer Robert Johnson said something like this happened in the middle ages.) The love potion, the fated lovers, the couples transgressing tribal lines are similar to the Samaritan. We still really want to believe it is possible for these relationships to work. Instead of the Samaritan, it's Isolde, Guinevere, and Juliet. In the background, the warring tribes in their stories are a constant.
Yes, you beautifully describe the ache in this move. A properly free choice to love the Other always carries some price in a world of managed boundaries. I suppose the messianic figure embodies the paradox in being both liberator and suffering servant... holds the door of redemptive treason open, on one hand, but is aware of the world's judgment on the other. This aches. Truly said.
Thanks for reminding me of these insights from Illich -- I hadn’t really received them as fully before. Other reading and events may have helped recently. So good to see Dougald and David Cayley together too! Thanks for helping that happen.
My pleasure Dan. Glad you made it to the Illich moot. I'll put out a link to the next one shortly.
In Works of Love, Soren Kierkegaard has three individual chapters, on the "shall", "the neighbour" and the "you", of "You shall love your neighbour as yourself". He says things like "Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally secured against every change, eternally made free in blessed independence, eternally and happily secured against despair."
As with others here, I'm really pleased to have been introduced to Ivan Illich. Many thanks indeed David.
My pleasure Andrew. Thanks for reading.
Thank you for introducing me to Ivan Illich. He sounds as if he was a rare voice of integrity and clarity in a world ever-descending into confusion and darkness, rather like Ammon Hennacy a generation earlier with his one-man revolution. Interesting take on the Samaritan story too. I'm not sure I fully understand his interpretation, but I certainly agree it is not a moralistic story about good behaviour. I wrote my own reflection on this a couple of years ago (tobiasmayer.uk/kjv365/reflection?291). I hear it as a story (a prediction even) of a world turned upside down. Good to see you here, David, and I look forward to more of your thoughts.
Hi Toby. I've not come across Ammon Hennacy before. Thank you for pointing him out.
Uncanny
Out beyond the ken.
A particularly potent morning portent.
Thank you Benjamin
My pleasure. Thank you for reading.