KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 7 June
What is written? … How do you read?
Two significant questions: what is written in the Law and how do you read? These are the questions which Jesus puts to “a certain lawyer” who was trying to put him to the test. In good Socratic fashion, Jesus turns his question about eternal life to these two interrelated questions. What happens belongs to education itself: truth is drawn out of the lawyer in spite of himself. He responds with what has come to be known in the Christian understanding as the Summary of the Law: the love of God and the love of neighbour.
It is a profound ethical teaching that unites God and our humanity. The love of the one requires the love of the other. In terms of the Torah or Law, it draws upon Deuteronomy and Leviticus in the Hebrew Scriptures and states the ethical principle that belongs to Judaism, Christianity, and beyond. It belongs to the universal ethical teachings to which everyone is subject, what C.S. Lewis called the Tao, deliberately using an ancient Chinese term meaning The Way to encapsulate a common sensibility about an overarching ethical principle that speaks to the truth and dignity of our humanity. It is the counter to the subjectivism of values.
The last two Chapels of the School year were on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Just as we ended on the note of wisdom with the 11s and 12s last week, so it seemed appropriate to end with the ethical principles that have been with us throughout the year for the Junior School and the 10s. It was also the last Chapels for a number of faculty, some of whom have been here at the School and in the Chapel far longer than I have been. We say farewell to Mrs. Taya Shields, Mrs. Michelle Belliveau, Mr. Paul Hollett, and Mr. Kim Walsh among others. My thanks to them for their support and consideration over these many years.
The two questions belong to the setting for one of the most famous parables of Jesus, the parable of the Good Samaritan. The lawyer had answered the question about what is written in the Law and he read it correctly, Jesus said, adding “this do and you shall live.” But the lawyer, Luke tells us, “willing to justify himself” asks, “and who is my neighbour?” It is a sceptical and cynical question of disdain and dismissal, a rejection of the compelling conjunction of the love of God and neighbour by denying any obligation towards the latter. In response Jesus tells the parable of what has come to be known as the Good Samaritan.