One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?”
Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
The man answered, “'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'”
“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”Luke 10:25 – 29
Jesus answered with the parable of the good Samaritan. The question that triggers the story is 'who is my neighbour?' The command, 'love your neighbour' isn't, of itself, a new and radical teaching. That is, if my neighbour is a member of my tribe, someone genetically similar to me, who keeps my accepted code of laws, and knows the secret handshakes of my group, then it makes total sense for me to behave altruistically towards them – indeed millenia of cultural conditioning have predisposed me to do just that. But the parable of the Good Samaritan says something different than that – it suggests that our neighbour is much farther away from our tribe than we may feel comfortable with. If we are to understand why Christians have such a difficult time 'loving their neighbours' perhaps an understanding of the role of tribal identity may be helpful.
There is a concept called kin-selected altruism which is defined as 'behaviour that benefits close relatives'. Humans, like many other organisms, have survived for millenia because of their defense of the tribe. A hunter-gatherer tribe, which lives very close to the edge of its resources at all times and in all seasons, must defend the livelihood of their own tribe over the tribes of those around them. A competing tribe who comes too close to scarce food resources puts both you and your tribe at risk of hunger, starvation and ultimately death. To secure access to the resources that do exist, power is necessary within the tribe, and therefore it is valuable to fight to gain power. This is true both for males who will seek the role of chief, and females who will seek the role of chief's wife (regardless of how many wives the chief may already have!) But ultimately the fight for power within the group will be superceeded by the necessity of defense of the tribe.
The purpose of life as human beings is not simply to survive ourselves, but to “be fruitful and multiply”. There is, therefore, a God-inspired direction toward having children. Interestingly, however, this desire for children often falls under the reality of kin-selected altruism, through intra-tribal marriage, carefully controlled inter-tribal marriage and conqueror's rights. Tribal intramarriage is something that goes back to the very earliest time period, and it is not unusual in ancient tribes to see cousins and even half-siblings being married to each other. Even in those tribes which do not believe in marriage within the tribe, you will find there are definitive limits on which (very closely genetically similar) tribes are acceptable for potential marriage partners. And when one tribe is victorious over another, they will very frequently kill the men and rape the women, thereby establishing their genetic makeup in the offspring of even this previous enemy.1 In each case, the goal of procreation is bounded by the need to protect tribal identity, which has as its outcome a situation whereby the next generation is as genetically similar to your own as possible. This 'intentional breeding' strategy has obvious value in a clan and tribal-based society. In a world where 'social security' in old age comes from your children and your children's children – and their allegiance towards you, the closer you are to your offspring – the more they can see themselves in you – the more likely they are to care for you when you are at your most vulnerable.2
To 'benefit our close relatives' above those from another tribe – whether as a means of establishing land borders, determining acceptable marriage partners or protecting other societal interests – requires a clear set of guidelines to ensure that we know who is 'in' and who is 'out'. All the while you live in a small hunter-gatherer society of 100 – 150, it is relatively simple to
distinguish between those who are relatives and those who aren't – the human brain can track them all. Just to be on the safe side, however, (and especially as humans have expanded their sphere of relationship beyond 1503) humans have developed a fascinating array of machinery to provide this distinction. When we look at tribal groups that have maintained their isolation from the rest of the world, we see that they have distinctive language, clothing (or lack there-of), jewellery and piercing practices.4 They have established methods for determining leadership and pride of place is given to the tribal story-teller. The chief and story-teller work together to maintain a continuance of the shared stories, customs, superstitions and behaviour of the tribe. Coming-of-age rituals bring children into the heart of the tribe, ensure their commitment to the ways of the tribe, and leave the imprint of the tribal beliefs upon them for the rest of their lives.
With this as our historical reality, it is interesting to see what has happened as our societal groupings have enlarged into towns, villages and cities. The move to larger centres of civilisation has pushed our potential social interactions far beyond the natural limit of 150 people with whom we are capable of maintaining a social relationship. We cannot know just by virtue of a person being in 'our place' whether they are 'us' or 'them'. We cannot necessarily identify someone visually as 'us' or 'them', even. And although it may not be politically correct to say so, human beings by enlarge continue to strive to make this distinction. Because if, as we have done as humans since the very beginning, we are to propagate our genetic material over that of the 'other', or even to know who qualifies as 'those closely related to us' toward whom we should engage in relationships of reciprocal benefit, we need to work very hard at both maintaining our tribal markers and analysing those of the people around us. And even if 'us' versus 'them' cannot be linked to genetic similarity, we strive to categorise the people around us in an attempt to bring the infinite number of human relationships available down to a manageable number – a process which still requires markers of distinction.
Hence the pervasive human tendency to form subgroups – complete with distinctive clothing, distinctive language, and distinctive cultural mannerisms. A random high-school might well include a Goth, Skater, Stoner, Jock, and Nerd sub-culture, just to name a few, but this activity is not limited to those of the 'angsty-teenage-rebellion' stage. In general, whether the distinctions are race, class, religion or sub-culture, teens and adults5 seek to define the boundaries upon which to determine who they will behave better towards, be more willing to help out, or more willing to engage in acts of procreation with. These people will be those who appear to belong to their 'tribe'.
This may seem terribly foreign, but it is true in the church, as well. We divide ourselves into tribes, although we call them denominations, and we divide ourselves into clans – the Chinese Baptist Church, for example, as opposed to simply the Baptist Church. Its very easy to spot someone from your own tribe, just by observing for a few minutes the language they use (do they say 'Lord's supper', 'Eucharist', or 'Communion', just as an obvious example), the issues that they concern themselves with, and the language in which all things 'official' are conducted. Even in the very newest, 'post-modern' streams of the church, there are flags of distinction, in-phrases, and emphases which are used like a swipe-card in the office to let in those with the secret password, and keep all others out.
Against this background, the parable Jesus tells becomes incredibly radical, even to our 21st century Christian ears. Jesus' story tells us that our neighbour may well be a Samaritan – someone from a different tribe! In fact, not only were the Samaritans an enemy tribe – they were distant cousins to the Israelites, who sold out their cultural distinctiveness when the Assyrians overran Israel. Instead of being taken away as captives, they agreed to the Assyrian resettlement terms and intermarried with the Assyrians. They still maintained their place as Abraham's descendents, still claimed to worship YHWH, and still lived in the Holy Land. But their intermarriage had, to the returned exiles who kept their cultural laws of only ever marrying a Jew, turned them into the lowest form of scum – a people and region of Israel so despised that people would travel far out of their way, with much personal risk, to avoid contact with them. These are the 'neighbours' that Jesus would have us love!
So if Jesus is truly saying 'act to the benefit of those that are not closely related to you', or to those who, even worse, have broken the code of the tribe, then he is challenging every societal norm back to the beginning of time.
Like the Pharisees of old, we cling to the security of a list of do's and don'ts to distinguish 'us' from 'them'. Our distinctions span both questions of tribal identity and clan, pulling us into ever shrinking spheres of influence and interaction. Perhaps the question of 'who is my neighbour?' could be rephrased as 'who is my tribe?' and the answer Jesus gives, to one of the 'teachers of religious law' is, 'the one who has broken the rules'. Over the course of Jesus' teaching and throughout the remainder of the New Testatment, this concept is expanded upon time and again, until the answer to 'who is my neighbour?' is answerable in one word – everyone.6
At the heart of the gospel is this incredibly new idea – that everyone is a part of my tribe. In Christ alone can this idea take shape – can the chasms that have separated us throughout human history be dissolved, not for the purpose of building a new tribal identity, but for the awe-inspiring experience of transcending tribal identity until there is room for everyone.
Into the room walked four goths. They found space for themselves amongst the overturned desks of the crowded classroom – their presence bringing the total number of students to over 40. I looked around in amazement to see catholics, mainline and evangelical protestants; chinese, european and african; christian, neo-pagan and atheist; goths, skaters, nerds, artsies and locals all gathered together to wrestle with the person and message of Jesus Christ.
Heather – remembering her high school Christian Club, Dustkickers for Christ
When this is our reality, we will catch a foretaste of heaven.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared for her husband. ... No temple could be seen in the city, for the Lord God Almight and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. The nations of the earth will walk in its light, and the rulers of the world will come and bring their glory to it. Its gates never close at the end of the day because there is no night. And all the nations will bring their glory and honor into the city.
Revelation 21: 1-2; 22-26
1Of course, although the children of these unions will outwardly be taught only that of their father's culture, challenges have often come about when the mother has sereptitiously passed on her own tribal stories, religion and markers.
2This is also a fairly obvious explanation as to why those with genetic disabilities have for so long been left to die – they are genetically dissimilar, they would cause undue hardship to the entire community, and they put the entire community at risk by their very existence. Its not a very 'nice' view to us today, but similar arguments are still used in 2007: “I can't possibly look after a disabled child – it would hurt my marriage; I don't have enough money; it would rob my other children of the right to grow up in a 'normal' household.” Although all true, I suspect the parable of the Good Samaritan would have something to say about this as well ....
3Dunbar's Number. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
4I personally would not necessarily enjoy having a stretched lip, an elongated neck or stretched earlobe, but these are just a handfull of the piercing practices used by African tribes to this day as tribal marks of distinction.
5Although children will sometimes make these distinctions, below the age of eight they are unlikely to come to the distinctive conclusions on their own – it is far more likely that if they do so it will be at the behest or suggestion of someone older than them.
6Paul asserts that There is neither Jew nor Greek,”; Peter experiences the vision of the sheet; the Jerusalem council determines that circumcision is not necessary for the gentiles who have become believers; Paul interacts with the Ethiopian official; John's vision recorded in Revelation includes a place full of all the nations.
