One of the most familiar and beloved parables recounted in the Biblical book of Luke is the parable of the Good Samaritan. To recall it, the parable tells how a Jewish man was waylaid by robbers while traveling, beaten, and left for dead. Two supposedly admirable, even holy types, a priest and a scholar, passed by the man and could not be bothered to stop and render aid. Then along came a Samaritan, a known enemy of anyone Jewish (the Jews and the Samaritans had a long history of despising one another), and the Samaritan not only cared for the injured person but carried him to an inn where he could rest and recover, and paid for the lodging charges.

This parable is typically interpreted as a lesson about being kind to one’s enemies, and kindness to enemies is indeed a theme in many spiritual teachings. But Irish poet and theologian Padraig O Tuama gives the parable a different interpretive twist by suggesting that it challenges us to consider when and how we might be willing to accept the kindness of one of our own enemies. Would I allow someone I despised to, say, help me if my car broke down? Or even more unsettling, would I allow someone I despised to assist me after a bad fall, lift me, take me to a doctor? What would it mean for an enemy to be kind to me?

As I watch the continued dispiriting polarization in our politics, I sometimes wonder whether our leaders are so dug in that they are not even willing to accept help from sworn enemies on the other side of the aisle. Can they no longer see their opponents as anything other than opponents? And is any sort of support from an opponent no longer deemed worthy? Is purity, purity in belief and in politics, the only measure of who we team up with?

I have seen these questions percolate down to the level of congregational dynamics at times. In a previous congregation I served, we incurred the outrage of some neighboring UU churches when we partnered to build homes in Tijuana with a conservative Christian organization known to regard homosexuality as a sin, a value utterly opposed to our values. More recently, we watched our downtown UU Louisville neighbors welcome as sanctuary allies people and groups who were armed, again a value contrary to church positions as gun-free sites. In discussing this development with some of our social justice leaders, a comment especially struck me: “do we insist that the partners we do justice work with must accept our values in every respect?”

Or, as Tuama put it in his discussion of the parable, are we willing to be aided by someone we are more often judging to be our enemy? I want to believe that as UUs who typically do not view the world in dualistic terms, we are open to seeing others in all their contradictions and complexities, just as we want them to see us.

In faith, hope, and love,
Kathy