Took my family to see the new "Karate Kid" last week. Most of us thought it was a decent enough remake of the original, but I kept getting distracted by my obsession with comparing the new one to the original, which I venerate as one of those movies of my youth that changed my life (okay, it didn't exactly change my life, but I still liked it a lot).
Much was changed in the new movie--the setting for one, which is in China. I liked that change. One of the things that remained the same is the motto of the "evil" martial arts instructor for the bullies. I can't remember the entire motto, but part of it is "no mercy." He teaches his class to have no mercy on their opponents and to "finish" them when they are down. This vicious attitude is reprehensible to Mr. Miyagi in the original and to Jackie Chan's character in the remake. Fairness, respect and mercy are central to their understanding of martial arts. I know this first hand now that my son, Jack, is taking Tae Kwon Do. At the end of each session, the kids gather around the instructor and shout out their motto, and one of the themes is mercy.
As Jack learns to live into a life called to mercy through his martial arts instruction, I hope he is also learning something about mercy from his family and faith community. The gospel reading in worship on Sunday is the very familiar story from Luke 10 of the good Samaritan. A lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus gives him the basic Jewish teaching of loving God and neighbor. The lawyer wants more specificity (I'll refrain from any lawyer jokes): "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus tells a story in response, rather than give the lawyer the specificity he was seeking. The story of the good Samaritan ends with Jesus now asking the lawyer a question: "Who was neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands?" Jesus has lobbed one to the lawyer and the lawyer hits it out of the park by answering, "The one who showed him mercy."
Reread this story today. You've read and heard this story so many times before. Try to read it with fresh eyes. What startles you about it? What pisses you off about it? What if you were a priest and heard Jesus tell this story? Would you think it fair to him? Are you the priest in the story or the Samaritan? Not an easy question, I should think.
