The first news I heard when I woke up yesterday was the verdict in the George Zimmerman case. My heart was heavy. I know what message this sends to black boys even if it was actually just a matter of not being able to prove Zimmerman’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The second news I heard, it being Sunday, was the Good News. In Catholic churches and a good number of Protestant ones this Sunday, we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke.
Our priest did OK. He had clearly planned to talk about ethics in Luke. The priest and the Levite passed the man lying in the road because they are not allowed, by Jewish law, to come in contact with blood. Going to the man’s assistance would have made them ritually impure. They are actually following the law by passing him by. (After all, the lawyer who asked Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life was a man who knew the Jewish law, and had answered in a way informed by that law.) The Samaritan, who is not a Jew or a priest, is not bound by this law.
But that is a very different approach than the one Jesus takes. After telling the story, he asks: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to that man who fell into the hands of robbers?” and the lawyer answers: “The one who showed him mercy.”
Our priest segued over to the point that our neighbor includes those who are other: politically, religiously, ethnically, racially, in sexual orientation, etc. We are directed to treat all of these, so often portrayed as “other,” with mercy and kindness and generosity.
But this is not, for me, a story about racial profiling (although I think George Zimmerman clearly went after, feared, and killed Trayvon Martin because of he was other: urban, black, teen). am heavy-hearted today because of the verdict, but my heart is so much more heavy because of what happened that night in Sanford, Florida. It is about neighborhood. It is about neighborhood watch. It is about guns. It is about the fact that George Zimmerman, not just the jury, thinks he is innocent.
There was a robber on the road in the Gospel– it was a dangerous road. There had been robbers in Zimmerman’s neighborhood, but you cannot convince me it was a dangerous neighborhood.
The Good Samaritan stops and cares for the victim in the road. He tends to him. He puts the man on his own donkey and takes him to an inn, where he pays for his care.
How different this is from the way George Zimmerman walked the streets of his gated community that night. He was there with a gun, looking for troublemakers.
This is a tragedy of race, but it is an even larger tragedy than that. It is a tragedy of a nation that once again and over and over cannot come to terms with the problem of gun ownership. It is a problem of neighbor and neighborhood.
When we look at each other, who do we see? What does it take to move us with compassion? What does it take to temper fear and value life above all else?