A lawyer is faced with coming to terms with his own prejudice and questions whether words are ever enough

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Ahhh!  I didn’t answer his question …. Couldn’t answer his question.

Nothing more than a mumble … that’s all I would give:

“The one who was kind to him”, I said.

The one who was kind – how pathetic can you get? 

Come on man, why didn’t you just say it?  The Samaritan – that’s what you mean, isn’t it?

But you couldn’t come out with it, could you?

A coward, that’s what you are!

In spite of all your pretensions, you’re a coward, and nothing more!

“The Samaritan!” that’s all you had to say!

But you couldn’t … you wouldn’t. 

Oh Lord, how did I get myself into this mess?!

You know, I haven’t slept a wink all night?

Those words that I wouldn’t let out yesterday, have been racing around like a trapped animal in my head.  Try as I have to quieten them, they’ve just carried on raging … shouting out their truth and accusing me.

I’ve walked miles around the city … and I paced my room through the night … but there is no escaping.

“The Samaritan” they keep shouting.

“The truth” they keep shouting.

“Why can’t you face up to it?” they keep shouting.

“Why can’t you face up to yourself?”

Oh man! Some lawyer you turned out to be!

With all that training, how did you allow him to get you like that?

But he walked all over you, didn’t he?

Saw right through you, didn’t he?

Turned the tables good and proper, didn’t he? … and look at you now!

I mean just look at you now!

I went, yesterday, to trap him – to catch him out and discredit him.

We all try to do it. It’s part of our job, but also, I think, part of our make-up.

We’re into a deadly kind of one-up-manship.  We thrive on conquering … climbing high as intellectual giants … Proving ourselves, by destroying others: seeing their arguments tumble, exposing the weakness of their point.

For weeks we’ve been trying to do it with Jesus.  We’d discuss for hours the best tactics to use, and then we’d go and try it out.  But he was a tough one, you know.  All our standard put-you-downs had failed, and we we’re getting just a little – well, more than a little – worried by this upstart of a Galilean. We had to shut him up.

So, we talked and we plotted and we schemed … there had to be a chink in his armour somewhere but as yet we just hadn’t found it.  And whenever we got the chance, we would have just one more prod.

Well, it was about my turn to have a go at him yesterday.

Although I really wish I’d never tried it now!

A right idiot, that’s what I proved myself to be.

I made a subtle play … but play it was and Jesus knew it.

There was nothing straightforward about my question … It was quite obviously loaded and set to trap.  I wasn’t at all really interested in his way to eternal life. But maybe, just maybe, he’d say something out of line … give me something to pounce on … open himself up for the kill.

Maybe, just maybe, my name would go down in the book as the one who finally managed to put this back-woods preacher-man in his place?

But, right from the outset, I was onto a loser.

He used a simple technique: answering question with question.

He lobbed the ball right back into my court.

And then I was the one having to think hard and fast how to play it.

I was the one having to watch my words carefully so as not to be caught out of line.

I quickly gave a text book answer; perfectly correct and no-one could argue with it.

There was nothing startling about it.

Just words that anyone with an average knowledge of scripture would say.

Words of the greatest commandment, of loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself.

From the point of view of controversy, it was bland and completely disarming.

“Well said!”, he replied, taking the last bit of sting from my tail.

“Good answer!  Well said!  Do that and you will live!”

I’d expected something a bit more engaging than that … but the very simplicity of his answer left me completely outwitted.  I’d publicly drawn my sword, so to speak … but he’d shown there was absolutely nothing to fight about.  Unless I was going to argue with my own scriptures, that is.  Unless I was going to walk right into the trap I myself had set.

I looked at my opponent and saw the sad smile on his face.

He knew that I knew that he knew I was breaking.

I felt foolish about the whole thing, and I wanted out of there right away …

but a lawyer’s mind under threat knows how to come out fighting.

I was determined to justify myself, and not to leave it that I’d asked a pointless question …

So, I immediately asked another one, hoping to save face, hoping to find some ground opening up for debate so that I could talk myself out of humiliation.

But even that was denied me.

He didn’t throw a question back at me this time… he told a story!

And it was a good story, a gripping story, and even I have to admit he used that story powerfully and to great effect … but I didn’t want a story, I wanted an argument and a debate.   I didn’t, then, want to listen, I wanted to speak … to talk him down, to drown him out with the drone, drone, drone, of my own self-justification.

But I’d asked the question, so I had to hear the answer: “Who then is my neighbour”, I’d said.

Now, I have travelled that road from Jerusalem to Jericho several times, so I was heartened, to begin with, to hear that Jesus was talking absolute rot!  A man travelling that road alone?  Never!  Or if he did, he deserved everything he got.  Too dangerous for anyone … even for priests and for Levites.

But at the inclusion of those two, my humour began to fail and I found myself smarting.

OK, they were completely justified in hurrying on by if the man was dead … but he never gave them pause to check!  He painted them black and heartless, leaving a helpless man to his fate.  Why?  Because of the danger?  No! Because of the risk to ritual purification!  A man left to die for the sake of ritual purification!

At this point, I was quite surprised how far Jesus had managed to take me along with him.  I was as angry with the system as I was with him for exposing it. But I was angrier with myself for letting him get me thinking like that.

What followed next was a real punch below the belt.

A Samaritan! 

A dog of a Samaritan … doing what any decent person would do … displaying, where my own leaders had failed, the very love that Jesus had forced me to admit was the greatest commandment and the way to life!

Beaten at my own game!

The tables turned!

I was challenged to measure my own life by the standards that I had been using to try and trap Jesus.

“Who then, acted like a neighbour to him?”

“The Samaritan!”  

I wanted to say “The Samaritan!”  But I couldn’t … and I still can’t.

Not really.

Not publicly.

Not from the heart.

So where does that leave love then, you may be asking?

Well, don’t you think that’s what I’ve been asking myself all night?

Am I really so cold, so blind, so prejudiced?

Why couldn’t I say it?

Why couldn’t I admit anything good of him – the Samaritan – my neighbour?

“The one who was kind to him”, I mumbled.

How pathetic!

How revealing!

Mind you, it was a good lawyer’s answer that; perfectly correct, but not at all true!

I suppose that I should be proud of myself, really.

A few of my colleagues, I expect, will have picked up on it, and they’ll congratulate me tomorrow.  “Good answer, that!”  they’ll say… “Well said!”

Now where have I heard those words before?

And His smile told just how little He thought of it all!

Well said!    

Well said?