The British geneticist and evolutionary biologist Haldane once famously said: “I would gladly lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.” Haldane’s quip follows from a selfish gene’s cost/benefit analysis, calculated from the odds of gene sustainability given a particular sacrificial action. Hence, its willingness to sacrifice for two siblings who are (on average) 50% identical by descent, or four nephews at 25%, or eight cousins at 12.5%.
Brothers help brothers because they share common genes. People help distant others when reputational benefits accrue. Hence, sacrificial-like actions like “giving the shirt off your back” may be mutually beneficial and not strictly sacrificial when the recipient is in one’s tribe. But all bets are off for those outside the tribe where a sacrificial action offers no chance of a beneficial return.
Christ’s Countercultural Ethic of Love
“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” That message, delivered by the angels in announcing the birth of Christ, foretold the coming of a new way of living complete with a different calculus for giving. Like the blindfolded Lady Justice, divine love confronts the selfish gene through a blindness to differences in tribe, community, and nation. Just as Jesus came to serve and sacrifice for us, we do the same for others as defined by Christ’s all-encompassing concept of neighbor.
- “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. – 1 John 3:16-18
- “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? – Matthew 5:43-47.
- “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 Love your neighbor as yourself. You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. Do this and you will live. But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers…a priest passed by…so to a Levite…But a Samaritan…”
The Scandal of the Good Samaritan
The Good Samaritan parable teaches us about the centrality and scope of divine love. Loving God and loving our neighbor, with the latter equaling the former, forms our highest calling. Jesus then adds a scandalous twist by using a societal outcast, a pariah outside of the Jewish race, to demonstrate the nature of such love. Samaritans were the cultural arch enemies of the Jews. Jewish people considered them unclean foreigners and went to extraordinary lengths to avoid them. The two groups didn’t mix and the antipathy was mutual.
Jesus doubles down when he compares the faithfulness of the Samaritan to the unfaithfulness of two religious leaders to illustrate His main point. Love is known through action and faith by our deeds. And the proof of the pudding comes when our actions and deeds reflect the gospel’s new way of living irrespective of tribe, community, or nation.
The Test
Theologian NT Wright describes this radical, countercultural, notion of love as: “Jesus came to earth to bring something new, through the launch of a kingdom that was not of this world. As citizens of that kingdom, we are to be instruments of God’s new creation, planting signposts in hostile soil that show a different way to be human.”
So here’s a test for the degree in which we have rejected the selfish gene and instead said “yes” to be an “instrument of God’s new creation.” When the other is the stranger, the immigrant, the substance abuser, and the homeless; or the genderly different, the racially different, the mentally different, the politically different and the theologically different, do we still love in the same manner as we do for members of our own tribe? To wit: are we willing to give the shirt off our back, speak generously about them, and seek their flourishing through concrete actions which attend to their needs?
Three Outcomes
But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
My long-time political tradition, influenced largely by my long-time faith tradition is the political group least welcoming to legal immigration.
But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
Under United States law, a refugee is someone who: Is located outside of the United States, Is of special humanitarian concern to the United States, Demonstrates that they were persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. My long-time faith tradition, despite the clarity of scripture and their past history of generosity, is now the religious group in the United States least welcoming to refugees.
But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
Despite key evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham and Russell Moore decrying a family separation immigration policy, calling it out as an issue of “grave moral concern,” white evangelical Protestants have been the religious group most supportive of separating children from their parents when apprehended for illegally crossing the Southern border.
Countercultural Christ-likeness
Christ-like love defeats ideology. The Good Samaritan didn’t know the backstory to the injured man. He could have assumed the man’s injury stemmed from poor choices and then just walked away like the others. He could have justified that action citing “individual responsibility.” But the Samaritan wasn’t interested in assessing blame, just achieving an outcome in accordance with his faith.
Christ-like love defeats a me first mindset. The Samaritan refused to privilege tribe, community, or nation. A man needed help and the Samarian only saw the need. He then matched observation with action by giving significant portions of his time, treasure and talent to care for the injured man, paying the innkeeper two denarii (roughly two days wages) up front with a promise for more if needed.
Christ-like love nuances earthly law. A rabbinical purification law around the time of Christ decreed that “the daughters of the Samaritans are menstruants from their cradle” (Mishnah Niddah 4.1). These restrictions applied to Samaritan men by implication of association. Hence, the Jewish law deemed every Samaritan to be avoided as unclean. Jesus’ response showed nuance, considering both the earthly and heavenly realms yet with the thumb firmly placed on the heavenly realm scale. He forbade his disciples from preaching in Samaritan towns consistent with rabbinical law. Yet he engaged the Samaritan woman and honored the Samaritan man consistent with his Kingdom mission.
Christ-like love exchanges a closed fist for an open hand. The Samaritan was likely unaware of Christ’s teaching in Matthew 25:35: “for I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” This passage occurs amid a weighty teaching where those with a closed fist and lacking in generosity risk eternal punishment. But the Samaritan likely knew the Hebrew scriptures which are rife with verses about extending an open hand to a stranger or foreigner such as Deut 10:19 “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Christ-like love defeats walls of division. The Samaritan’s assistance to the injured man required him to breach a wall of division between his people and the Jews. We as followers of Christ have the same wall-breaking vocation. In Ephesians, the apostle Paul writes about Christ’s mission as: “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.” This means that “there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Christ-like love trumps tribal identity. We are made for community, to belong to one another. Our human nature draws us towards people like us. We seek familiarity. Our communities give back by providing vital support and protection. They create identity and meaning. Hence, many of our individual differences are formed, in part, from the force of our culture and community peculiarities. Although the gospel doesn’t dispose of this individuality, it does create an overarching ethic defined in scripture and witnessed through the life and teaching of Christ. And in the inevitable conflict between cultural affinities and our Christ-like calling, Christians privilege the latter at the expense of the former – like Christ’s example of the Samaritan.
But whatabout
But won’t immigrants take away jobs, lower wages, increase crime, introduce terrorism, overload the welfare state and increase our budget deficit? And whatabout protecting the American way of life, the rule of law and national sovereignty given the unprecedented levels of immigration? Shouldn’t taking care of Americans and resolving their problems come first? All valid questions so let’s briefly consider them further.
Many of the economic, terrorism, and crime issues go away if one is willing to examine the data. Immigrant incarceration rates for violent and property crimes are less than the U.S. average. A displacement effect by immigrant workers is rarely observed according to most economic research. Immigrants, in fact, tend to create more jobs than they take. Terrorism rates by refugees and immigrants are extremely small and many orders of magnitude less than rates by tourists: “the chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year while the chance of being murdered in an attack committed by an illegal immigrant is an astronomical 1 in 10.9 billion per year. By contrast, the chance of being murdered by a tourist on a B visa, the most common tourist visa, is 1 in 3.9 million per year.”
Immigration levels today are less than those in 1910. Illegal immigration peaked around 2007 and has been falling steadily since. So why, as the graph below shows, do white evangelicals currently express such a high concern about “immigrants invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background?
Two things can be true at once: we can help needy Americans and help the needy from places far away. Any nation, especially one like ours which declares an affinity for Christian principles and which provides over $30 billion of subsidies to corporate oil and gas interests each year, can surely find a way to support one of the highest priorities as taught by Jesus: to sacrificially love our neighbor – someone outside of our tribe, community, and nation – just like the Samaritan man in scripture.
Last Thoughts From O Holy Night (v3)
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is Love and His gospel is Peace;
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,
And in his name all oppression shall cease,
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful Chorus raise we;
Let all within us praise his Holy name!
Christ is the Lord, then ever! ever praise we!
His pow’r and glory, evermore proclaim!
His pow’r and glory, evermore proclaim!