When I was a kid sitting in church on Sunday, I heard a lot of things from the pulpit that would surprise, if not shock, most people.
Things like: detailed descriptions of sexual acts that our pastor — my grandfather — found repulsive. I could name and describe many of them well before my eighth birthday. Around the holidays, my elementary school classmates would be attending performances of The Nutcracker or nativity plays. Meanwhile, I stood outside protesting, happily singing along to my family’s parody of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” — where, instead of “five golden rings!” we’d sing “five golden showers!”
Then there were the joyful celebrations of deadly tragedies like school shootings and September 11.
Our version of Jesus and God would have been unrecognizable to many modern Christians. In my family, Jesus wasn’t just some humble figure working miracles, and God’s message wasn’t a throw pillow stitched with love. We believed that the bad things that happened to people were not simple misfortune but God’s vengeance for sin — and therefore the destruction of that sin, and those sinners, was cause for rejoicing.
And we were absolutely certain in these beliefs. Biblical wisdom like pride goes before the fall — that seemed to be lost on my Gramps, who had a total lack of humility when it came to knowing The Truth. “There’s something wonderfully liberating in the notion that you’re one hundred percent right,” my grandfather would say, without even a hint of hyperbole.
And for me, one side effect of believing that my family knew every truth worth knowing was that it made it so fun to get into arguments with random strangers. I’d do it at our daily pickets in Topeka, Kansas; on our frequent trips to protest all across the U.S.; and later, online: chat rooms, message boards, and social media.
I loved these arguments. I grew up surrounded by lawyers, and my family and I studied the Bible constantly, memorizing verses and sometimes entire chapters of it at a time. We honed these skills with daily practice, so getting into those arguments felt like walking onto a stage with all the answers, while everyone else was still figuring out the questions.
And even though our beliefs and behavior made us outcasts, it felt like that was biblical, too.
Jesus said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own[…], but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
If we were going to be at odds with the whole world, at least I’d get to be on the winning side.
*****
Fellow Christians were a special target of my church. They were some of my favorite people to argue with, especially because I believed most Christians got Jesus all wrong. Like so many people, they tended to focus on the quotes of Jesus that seemed to be so forgiving, so loving. The Jesus who said revolutionary things like: “Love your enemies.” “Bless them that curse you.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” The Jesus who was friends with outcasts and sinners, and who rebuked the religious elite who judged them. Jesus, who was so gracious and merciful that he would die for others’ sins.
But my family knew that was only part of Jesus’ legacy. We loved to argue that there was a more fundamentalist and hardline part of his teaching, too — and that our Jesus was the more biblical one.
We took joy in destroying other Christians’ views of Jesus by showing that we knew the Bible better than they did. Once, when I was fifteen, I was standing with my family in New York City, preaching our version of a wrathful god to the people passing by on the sidewalk. A sweet-looking girl not much younger than I was came up to me. She was kinder to me than most were to someone telling everyone passing by that they were going to Hell. But she started trying to persuade me that I was wrong about Jesus. That he wouldn’t approve of the venom in our message. That this was the lamb of God, who came to bring peace. But without missing a beat, I started quoting the Bible back at her, showing how much better I knew, word-for-word, what the text actually said: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth,” Jesus said. “I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
And I’ll never forget the way her kind face fell as she realized I was telling the truth — that these words from Jesus really were in those pages.
I quoted more verses, and tears started running down her face.
But I was not moved by her crying. I took satisfaction from her tears. She needed to be disabused of the comforting lies about the Bible that had been told to her by people who claimed to love her. She needed to know the truth.
*****
But eventually, the truth as I understood it changed — drastically. After leaving Westboro, I didn’t know what to do with all the Bible still in my head. I spent a lot of time talking with Christians and Jews in particular, and couldn’t always reconcile their beliefs with all that text I had memorized.
At some point, though, I realized I didn’t need to. Religion may have been a destructive force in my life, but for many people I loved, it was a source of comfort and inspiration to do good. The parts of the Bible I struggled with didn’t trouble them — and I chose not to force my objections on them the way that I once would have.
Instead, I realized that I could choose to be delighted that this book was a source of hope to them, and to refuse the sort of theological battles that were a feature of my old life.
But then one day, against my better judgment, I found myself pulled right back to my old ways.
*****
After I left Westboro, I thought that urgent battles over the Bible and what it meant were something I had left behind for good. But then, not long ago, the same old instincts presented themselves again in an entirely different context. Instead of a picket line in New York, it was my own kitchen in a tiny town in South Dakota.
I’m going to change the details here just slightly, to protect the innocent. But suffice it to say that on this day, my little girl, Sølvi — who had just turned six — came home from visiting a dear friend of ours. And suddenly, she was excitedly chattering about the first two humans on earth: Adam and Eve. There was an instant tightness in my chest, and I asked her nonchalantly, “Hmm… The first two humans? How would they have gotten here?”
And she answered with a smile: “God put them here.”
I said nothing at first. And then she was talking about Jesus, the son of God — and who also is God — and several other very particular Christian ideas that I had, very deliberately, not spoken to her about. It wasn’t that I was planning to keep her from the tenets of the world’s largest religion forever. I just didn’t want to introduce her to supernatural beliefs when she was still young enough — still credulous enough — to just believe everything she was told by people who love her, when she would accept them more or less without question.
And as I stood there dumbfounded, listening to my little girl speak of the wonders of Jesus, my mind instantly returned to that familiar circuit, the verses in that special category of “Jesus Also Said.” I felt this absolute panic rising in my chest. I texted my friend in as calm and gentle a way as I could, but she didn’t seem to understand the gravity of what she’d done — the boundary that she had violated, that I’d thought had been so clear: Do not teach my daughter about religious values at this age.
Something inside me snapped. You could even say that I felt a little…possessed.
I began drafting a new message, and it started with those quotes of Jesus, one after another, in the hopes that she could understand why I didn’t want him unequivocally celebrated to my impossibly sweet and sensitive daughter.
I texted her quotes from Jesus, the same ones I’d used when I was young:
Jesus: “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.”
Jesus: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Jesus: “He that believeth not is condemned already.”
Jesus: “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.”
Jesus: “I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”
And I kept going and going.
Eventually I wrote her:
I told you tearfully, and in vulnerable conversations over many years, how much I have been hurt by these ideas. How much terror and suffering, past and present, they have caused. You knew. If you cannot understand why I will not stand for my children to have someone they trust tell them supernatural tales from a book and a person commonly regarded as unquestionable and “holy” — that threatens eternal torment to demand obedience to ideas that have destroyed my family — then I do not know what else to say.
And yet despite all my objections to those words of Jesus, despite the fact that those same words helped tear my family apart, and they are the reason that my parents do not know my children — still, in spite of all that, I can’t just dismiss Jesus.
Because the truth is that some of the moral instincts I treasure most were shaped by stories about him.
When I read the gospels now, I sometimes feel caught between two completely different Jesuses. One who taught people to fear, to divide themselves from the world, to place doctrine above human relationships. And another who said things so morally radical — so beautiful — that they reshaped the conscience of entire civilizations.
And maybe what unsettles me most is that both of those figures really are there in the text.
That’s part of why I reacted so strongly when my friend spoke to my daughter about Jesus.
But I also know that my friend was not trying to harm my daughter. She was trying to share something that she experiences as beautiful and life-giving. This same figure, Jesus, who became, in my family, a justification for cruelty has also inspired extraordinary compassion in countless other people.
Including, sometimes, in me.
And so, I want to share with you today a story that embodies that Jesus. And it also happens to be the first story that I — without reservation — decided to share with my children.
*****
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that this is one of the world’s most influential stories — not just in the world of religion, but in the world of morality writ large. It’s the story at the heart of what we’ve come to see as human rights, as acts of justice, as mercy toward strangers and dignity for the weak.
This is a story that would eventually become so woven into the fabric of our societies that even those who think of themselves as not just “unreligious” but anti-religious are still profoundly shaped by the assumptions and challenges and language of this tale that’s now thousands of years old.
And that is the story of “The Good Samaritan.”
Many people know of it, even if they don't actually know the story. It’s been depicted in so many types of art and poems and comic books. There was even an episode of Seinfeld called “The Good Samaritan,” where Jerry tries to date both the victim and the assailant of a hit-and-run car accident.
But the text itself is more powerful and complex than I think most people know.
This story comes from the part of the Bible called the Gospels — the first four books of the New Testament — and the main character is, of course, this guy Jesus.
And if you think of the Bible as one big long book, covering the span of thousands of years, Jesus shows up at a very tumultuous time. Israel had been a collection of tribes, and then a kingdom. But at this point, they are like many of their neighbors, in that they have been conquered and are being ruled by the Romans.
But here, in the land of Israel, the local holy men — or what we today would call “religious authorities” — still hold a lot of sway. They spend a lot of time arguing about different aspects of religious law, and Jesus was not a sanctioned authority figure. He was just this guy who’d been preaching and teaching some pretty radical ideas, and he had gained a following.
And this story is like a number of other ones, where the religious authorities and their scribes — think “lawyers” — go to Jesus in some public place, where he’s hanging out with his followers and maybe teaching and trying to convert new followers. And they ask him a tricky question to try to trap him in his words, or discredit him, or even get him in trouble with the law — arrested or killed.
The way it’s framed in the Bible is that these are people trained in the law, accustomed to precision — to asking questions that seem straightforward on the surface but are, in fact, doing much more underneath.
This story begins when one of them asks:
“Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
And Jesus — in his signature, somewhat wry way — turns the question back on the man who asks it.
“What is written in the law?” he says. “How readest thou?”
It’s a tricky question because the Jewish law — often called the Law of Moses — was very thorough and detailed on a number of things, like what not to eat (pork, shellfish, etc.) and what punishments you should get if you do various things. But interestingly, it doesn’t say much about how you would get into heaven — or if inheriting eternal life through God meant going to heaven at all. Maybe God would finally bring about a Garden-of-Eden-like heaven on earth for those who are worthy.
But again, there’s not a specific how-to in the Law of Moses about all this, and so there were lots of debates among religious leaders. To give one answer was to align with one camp, to give another was to align with that camp, and so on.
Jesus knows all this. So when he asks this lawyer, What do you think? the lawyer is obliged to answer his own question — and he does.
He says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.”
“And,” the lawyer continues, “[thou shalt love] thy neighbour as thyself.”
The lawyer is actually quoting two foundational commandments from Jewish law, and Jesus tells him, simply, You’ve answered correctly. Do that, and you’ll inherit eternal life.
You can almost read it as an indictment of the lawyer: You clearly know the right answer. So do it.
The lawyer seems to read it that way, too, because the text adds this revealing little detail: that the lawyer, “willing to justify himself,” presents a follow-up question — and this turn is really what makes the story unforgettable.
“And who is my neighbour?” the lawyer asks.
As in: Where do my responsibilities to my neighbor begin, and where do they end? Who qualifies?
And in response, Jesus tells a story. It’s a very Jesus move, to answer a question with a story or a parable.
He begins: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho” — and for context, that journey is apparently a steep and winding descent through rocky terrain, the sort of road where danger should probably be expected.
And as he makes that journey, this certain man “falls among thieves.” They strip him of his clothes, beat him, and depart, leaving him half dead. He’s abandoned there on the side of the road, suspended in that space between life and death, entirely dependent on whoever might happen to come along next.
And by chance, the first person to come along is a priest. However, when he sees the man on the ground, he crosses the road and passes by on the other side, leaving him there.
And then the same thing happens again. The next to come along that path is a Levite — the people in Israel who are set apart for religious service. And yet, he does the same thing. He sees the man lying half dead on the ground, and he, too, crosses the road and passes by on the other side.
The pairing here is remarkable because both of these are men who are ostensibly charged with tending to the things of God, men whose lives are ordered around the rituals and responsibilities of holiness. If anyone should recognize the moral responsibility of the scene in front of him, we might reasonably expect it to be men exactly like this. But instead of being moved to compassion, they don’t even seem to slow down.
And then, Jesus says, a certain Samaritan comes upon the man as he journeys.
Samaritans and Jews shared a common ancestry, but by this time, most Jews had come to see the Samaritans with hostility and resentment. They think of them as blasphemous.
So when Jesus introduces a Samaritan into this story, his audience would have understood immediately what that implied. This is the other — the mistrusted outsider — not the person you expect to embody any sort of moral goodness.
And yet when he sees the man, the Samaritan doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t stop to calculate his risk. He’s not weighing whether it’s his responsibility to act or not. He is immediately moved to compassion.
The Samaritan goes to him. And he touches him — he binds up the man’s injuries right there on the side of the road, using what he happens to have on him: wine to clean the wounds and then oil to help protect and heal them. He lifts the man onto his own animal — and maybe that means the Samaritan is also obliged to walk now instead of riding. And he brings him to an inn, where he continues to care for him.
But he’s still not finished.
Because the next day, when the Samaritan has to leave again to continue his journey, he takes out more money for the innkeeper, hands it over, and says, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend on his care, when I come again, I will repay you.”
And when Jesus finishes telling this story, he turns back to the man who asked the question.
He says, “Which now of these three, do you think was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?”
And the lawyer answers simply, “He that shewed mercy on him.”
And Jesus says to him, “Go, and do thou likewise.”
*****
There are so many aspects of this story that I now find absolutely incredible.
I’m not an academic scholar or a historian, but it’s hard not to notice what’s happening here:
Jesus makes the hero of the story — the guy who is the example of what you need to do to inherit eternal life — a man from what we might today call the “wrong religion,” the wrong tribe. The hero is not the most holy man, not the most devout man, but the man who acts with compassion and mercy.
This is the blowing open of a moral framework that had — from time immemorial, it seems — been organized around identity: who’s in, who’s out, who is bound to whom by family, by tribe, by who I consider “my people.” That order is being suddenly disrupted by something much more universal and much more difficult to live out. From this new perspective, care is no longer something you reserve for those inside your circle. It’s something you extend beyond it.
And to many people, that sounds almost obvious now. Cliched, even.
But for most of human history, it just wasn’t.
There’s also the way that the Samaritan acts out the golden rule, though it isn’t mentioned by name here: caring for the man in the way that we all would want, if we were brutalized as he was. It was the Samaritan’s actions, in this context, when the man needed real, practical aid — not his religious service — that made him the man’s neighbor.
And his belonging to the “wrong” tribe, the wrong religion, was of no consequence when evaluating his actions and his character.
And then there’s the way that readers will naturally tend to identify with the Samaritan — to see ourselves as the good and righteous and compassionate person who would obviously stop to help the man in need, and to judge the priest and the Levite for their selfishness and cowardice. But with even the slightest bit of reflection, it becomes much easier — and maybe more honest — to identify with the priest and the Levite than with the Samaritan.
It actually wasn’t until after I had already left Westboro that I came to understand how this story was an absolute indictment of the life I had been living. My family saw virtually all death and tragedy as punishment from God. And instead of offering practical assistance to the victims of, say, a massive tornado that destroyed a nearby town, we would go and protest them. “Repent!” we would say. But the Samaritan didn’t tell the man to repent. He helped him.
Why had I never noticed what now seems like the most obvious truth of this story?
And that’s maybe what I love most of all about “The Good Samaritan:” the way it reminds me that I can be profoundly wrong about something, while being completely certain that I’m right. I have come to revere the stories, and the ideas, the lessons that remind me of this, because the humility that gives me — the grace it gives me, both for old versions of myself and for others who I believe are wrong about important questions — helps me remember that they are my neighbors, too.
One idea I keep returning to now is the fact that love and pain so often come from the same source.
Jesus was, for me, a source of terror. Some of his words — especially the way they were wielded in my family — helped justify fear, division, estrangement, and some of the deepest wounds of my life.
And yet, some of the moral ideas that move me most deeply come from him, too: the insistence that mercy matters more than tribal loyalty. The challenge to see dignity in the outsider. The idea that compassion toward the vulnerable is more important than religious performance or ideological purity.
I think part of leaving Westboro was learning to resist the impulse to flatten people into categories of purely good or purely evil, saved or damned, righteous or wicked. That instinct made certainty easy, but it also made honesty almost impossible.
So now, I’m trying to do something more difficult than certainty: to be honest about the damage these ideas have caused in my life without refusing to see the beauty and wisdom that exist alongside that damage. To acknowledge that a person can wound you deeply and still be someone worth holding onto.
In my life, that’s been true of Jesus.
And of the friend, in that intense conflict over the words of Jesus.
And — I still believe — it’s true of the family from which I’m estranged.