The Good Samaritan and Problem of Evil

Gustave Dore, The Good Samaritan

One of the greatest obstacles of inviting people to Christian faith is the problem of evil in the world. Some people cannot reconcile an all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful God with the violence our own planet wreaks upon itself and humankind. Yet the tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes that lay waste to cities and destroy lives usually don't present nearly the challenge to faith presented by the evil men and women do to one another.

Those who find the problem of evil a major challenge to faith are right to take the issue so seriously. The longest book of the Bible, Job, is entirely concerned with nothing else. Human evil is a prominent theme of Jonah, one of the shortest books. An enormous amount of Jesus' teachings and deeds were oriented on good and evil, and Jesus' own people, the Jews, were formed by hundreds of years in chattel slavery in Egypt, finally delivered by God's hand. 

Jesus told a parable of a farmer who sowed good seed in his field, but an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. By the time the farmer knew his field had been polluted, tearing up the weeds would have torn up the wheat as well. He told his workers, to let them grow together until the harvest; then at harvest to collect the weeds first and burn them but store the wheat in the barn. 

Jesus never explained why evil exists. The weeds were planted by an enemy, whom Jesus explained to his disciples was the devil, but he does not explain why there is a devil in the first place. He teaches that the time will come when God will separate evil from good, and evil-doers from the righteous. That time is not yet. Grain isn’t harvested until it is ripe, and the parable seems to teach that for God to destroy evil now would do more harm than good. We might wish for fire from heaven to take care of certain matters, but God, wise beyond our understanding, knows better. 

But time for weeds does eventually run out. At harvest the reapers saved the wheat and burned the weeds. So, wrote Peter, “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives” (2 Pet 3:11). 

That’s the rub, isn’t it? Each person must decide whether he or she is wheat or weeds. Jesus pulled no punches on what difference it makes. In Matthew 7, Jesus said, "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt 7:19-20). 

We each must decide to be wheat, not weeds. It does not happen by accident; and the default is weeds. And weeds get burned. This is a hard teaching, no two ways about it. But there it is. But Jesus didn’t end the parable there. The good part is the tag line: “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” 

God is much more oriented on saving the righteous than destroying the evil. It’s more important for the wheat to grow than the weeds to perish. Peter wrote in his second epistle, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9 NIV). 

Vladimir Lenin said it was better to execute 100 innocent men than to let one guilty man go free. Lenin did what he said, of course, and we can easily imagine him ripping up 100 stalks of wheat to get one weed. God doesn’t work like that. Instead, God knows that goodness is more powerful than evil, and love is more powerful than hate. Transforming weeds to wheat is something God can do. 

But change is not always something we embrace easily. Some people change when they see the light and others wait until they feel the heat. The light is better. 

Jesus didn't simply make threats or promises about the end of evil. He both showed and taught what Paul later called "a more excellent way." That’s how Jesus lived his life: befriending sinners, hanging out with hated tax collectors and other discards of society. In agriculture weeds stay weeds, no matter what, but human beings can change. There were two weedy men, thieves, nailed to crosses beside Jesus. Yet one went to paradise that day.

One day Jesus was conversing with a religious lawyer. The lawyer said to Jesus, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 

Jesus answered, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" 

The lawyer said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 

Jesus told him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." 

But the lawyer wanted to make himself look good, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 

Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

"But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" 

The lawyer said, "The one who showed him mercy." 

Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise" (Luke 10:25‑37).

The great English statesman Edmund Burke observed that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. In this story, a priest and a Levite did do nothing, surely because of excellent reasons in their own mind. But the Samaritan didn't do nothing. He gave first aid to the beaten traveler, carried him to an inn and paid for his lodging. Because of him, the evil done to the traveler, while real, did not triumph. He did these things even though Samaritans and Jews generally despised each other. 

None of us think of ourselves as evil men or women. Yet do we have the right to think of ourselves as good? So many of us define our goodness by what we do not do - we don't do drugs, we don't steal from our employers, we don't fight with our neighbors. But do we define our neighbors as inclusively as Jesus did? 

The Samaritan showed mercy to the beaten Jew. Why do persons such as this Samaritan exist? There are ordinary people of our communities who live decent but mostly unremarkable lives, but there are also men or women who remind us of the Samaritan, who even shame us by their example. Christ's commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves is not uniquely Christian. But it is especially for Christians. Why do we not have a whole town of Christian Samaritans? After all, we see in the world that there not only Osama bin Ladens, but also Mother Teresas. 

And there are people like “Dr. David Baum, a long-time obstetrician in Highland Park,” Illinois, who last Monday,

Dr. Baum

… was attending the parade with his wife and children to watch his two-year-old grandson participate. When the shots rang out and others fled, he ran into the fray to try to help the victims. … 

Baum said there were at least three doctors, a nurse, and a nurse practitioner who joined him in treating victims.   …

In fact, “bystanders tied tourniquets and administered CPR” and 

... people from every corner of the Highland Park community sprang into action on July 4 in the wake of unspeakable tragedy. Nearly a dozen people, including off-duty doctors, nurses, and a football coach, were among the first to administer lifesaving assistance to victims of the parade shooting. 

I believe that there are more good Samaritans than are known. Samaritan-hood takes many forms today and the vast majority get no headlines. 

Perhaps such inquiries help form an answer to the faith problem of evil, for if there is a problem of evil, there is also a problem of good. If the existence of sin and evil hinder faith in a loving, redemptive God, then shouldn’t the daily instances of goodness and mercy we see around us compel us to know that a loving, redemptive God is real and in the world? 

So to persons who feel stymied in faith by the problem of evil, I say to remember that all of us are active actors in, not passive observers of, this world and the opportunities it presents for both good and evil. The psalmist's cry to God is less a plea to him than a recognition of our duties before him: "Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” 

That’s our job, for we are the answer to that prayer. The prophet Micah put it this way: "[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" 

The problem of evil is not a problem to be solved, it is a condition to be overcome. God is working in the world both to overcome evil and redeem it, and God does not labor alone. Each one of us is called to be a coworker of God. The Bible nowhere divorces love of neighbor from love for God. They are two sides of the same coin. To be righteous before God requires both; to prevail against evil requires both. 

How shall evil be overcome? Each of us shall open our hearts to God, be filled with Christ, accept the pardon given us. And by opening our hands to our neighbors, so that they may see Christ reflected from us. J. Gresham Machen wrote in 1923, 

 If we really love our fellow men, we shall never be content with [simply] binding up their wounds and pouring on oil and wine or rendering them any such lesser service. We shall indeed do such things for them. But the main business of our lives will be to bring them to the Saviour of their souls. (Christianity and Liberalism)

End note: In 2017, a man named Stephen Paddock shot hundreds of people. killing dozens, in La Vegas. Read what might God have said about that.