In Justice and the Parables of Jesus, Yung Suk Kim reframes the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) by moving away from the "sentimental" reading of a kind stranger and toward a structural analysis of Racial Justice.
Kim argues that we cannot understand the "Good" Samaritan without first understanding the "Bad" Systems—specifically the Roman and local juridical structures that racialized the Samaritan people.1. Decoding the "Samaritan" as a Racial Category
In the first century, the divide between Jews and Samaritans was not just religious; it functioned as a form of racialization. Samaritans were seen as "other," "impure," or "mongrelized" by the dominant religious and political structures.
-The Juridical Context: Kim points out that the lawyer’s question ("Who is my neighbor?") was a legal trap designed to exclude people from the circle of care.
-Structural Racism: By making a Samaritan the "hero," Jesus doesn't just tell a story about kindness; he performs a normative intervention. He forces his Jewish audience to accept life and salvation from the very person their "system" deemed racially and spiritually inferior.
2. The Critique of the Priest and the Levite
Traditional readings suggest the Priest and Levite passed by because they feared ritual impurity. Kim’s political-philosophical lens goes further:
-The Complicity of Status: These figures represent the elite social order of the time. Their failure to act is a failure of the system they represent.
-Procedural Justice vs. Racial Justice: They were following the "procedures" of their office, but those procedures blinded them to the human being in the ditch. Kim argues that "justice" often fails when people prioritize the preservation of their own status or institutional rules over the immediate needs of a racialized "other."
3. "Neighborliness" as a Political Act
Kim suggests that for Jesus, "neighbor" is a verb, not a noun.
-Dismantling Hierarchies: By the end of the story, the lawyer cannot even bring himself to say the word "Samaritan," simply calling him "the one who showed mercy."
-The Challenge: Kim posits that racial justice requires us to see the "neighbor" in those our society has systematically excluded. It’s not just about "liking" people of other races; it’s about a political commitment to their well-being that transcends national, racial, or legal boundaries.
