An Easter message for MAGA
When it comes to evangelical virtue-signalling there’s nothing quite like MAGA. These days when I think of their hypocrisy I think of Karoline Leavitt wearing a Christian cross while falsely condemning a man in a foreign hellhole prison, a prison that her boss Trump and his “administration” stuck him in after kidnapping him.
I hate to school them in their own religion, but perhaps MAGA needs a refresher in what their supposed boss Jesus actually has to say about such things. A relevant lesson can be found in Luke chapter 10, beginning at verse 25.
After Jesus proclaims that you should love your neighbour as yourself, “an expert in the law” (in the Greek, “nomikos,” a lawyer) stands up and wants to know, “And who is my neighbour?” After all, any good lawyer would want to know where the loopholes are, presumably so he can limit the people he’s required to love. Perhaps the lawyer wants to know what linguistic or ideological or ethnic boundaries he can use to justify hating certain people.
Jesus has some bad news for the lawyer. He lays a parable on him. Turns out a man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho when some thugs beat him, robbed him and left him for dead. A priest saw him beaten and bloodied in the road and passed on the other side. Same with a Levite who happened along later.
A little note here. Back then priests and Levites were among the most privileged identities one could hold among Judeans. They were the social elites. They were treated with automatic respect by virtue of their jobs, the size of their wallets and their parentage, even if they weren’t worthy of that respect.
Kind of like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, come to think of it. Priests and Levites were exemplars, leaders in the Jewish community, and they couldn’t be bothered to help one of their own lying beaten and bloodied in a gutter.
Anyway, back to the parable. Along comes a Samaritan, a socially low and despised character, a disdained foreigner of a different religion. If ever there was anyone in the world that a Jewish person living in Judea back then could have felt superior to, felt morally justified in persecuting and despising, it was a Samaritan.
So this Samaritan saw the beaten and bloodied Jewish man lying in the road and “he was moved with compassion.” You know, compassion? Empathy? Those things Elon Musk laughingly refers to as “weakness”?
The Samaritan bandaged the man’s wounds, treating them with oil and wine, put the broken and beaten man on his own animal and took him to an inn. He gave the innkeeper two denarii to take care of the man and promised to pay any additional costs when he returned.
Notice the Samaritan didn’t worry about the identity of the man. Didn’t apply any purity tests. Never asked the man his religion, his politics or his social status before helping him. Made no mention of the colour of his skin. Never wondered if the man would be able to pay him back. The Samaritan was “filled with compassion” and did everything in his power to help the man, asking nothing in return.
So Jesus kind of flips the question. The subject becomes the object. The easy answer to the question “who is my neighbour” is “everyone.” The real question is are you worthy to be called a neighbour? Can you justify the cross you so publicly — and frankly arrogantly — wear?
I cannot reconcile the claims of today’s evangelicals with the book they pretend to read and revere. Maybe they should check it out. They might just discover exactly how woke, how downright DEI, Jesus, their purported “saviour,” actually was.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.