#good samaritan

[awesomecooperlove]

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[ayyy-imma-ninja]

Hey! I was looking through the serial killer au tag, and found this post! X

I was wondering what this line meant: Such as forgetting to keep their hands to themselves after taking advantage of his kindness.

It's okay if you wanna keep it a secret for now, but I'm nosy lol

part of me is hesitant to explain, but it's no fun if everything about the AU is kept a secret >w<

But this does cover a serious topic involving unwanted touch and attempted assault.

Some time after Sun and Moon got their upgraded bodies they were talk of the town for a few days. Most wanted to check them out, either approaching them or dragging them into places to show them off. At one point the latter happened, and it was at a bar.

After a while a girl who was clearly drunk was looking for someone who could walk her home. She asks Sun specifically. And Sun, only wanting to help, agreed to make sure she got there safely. She said she didn't live far and that they could get there on foot. She wasn't local and was staying at the inn.

The whole time she holds onto him until they get there. He assumes that's the end of it, but then she claims she needs help getting up to her room on the third floor. He feels a bit off about it at this point but he helps her there anyway.

(tw: topic of attempted assault below the cut)

He gets her to the door to her room when she suddenly pins him to the wall; he can easily break free but he's more shocked by what was happening to do so. She speaks in a drunken sultry tone about thanking him for his help and wanting to reward him, and she starts feeling him up. Her hands go to places he doesn't want them to go. She even tries kissing him.

He snaps out of the shock and is scared shitless by this, pushes her away and runs out of the building and straight to his and Moon's apartment. He never sees the girl again as she leaves town the next day.

Sun never told Moon about this incident until years later (still before Detective Y/N returns) because the girl was absolutely wasted and likely didn't know what she was doing; that and he was afraid Moon would kill her. When Moon does find out after Sun suffers a panic attack at a resident's party, he is livid. He's pissed at the girl for doing it, not caring she was drunk, and pissed at Sun for keeping this a secret because they always told each other everything.

But yeah. Because of this incident, he doesn't like going to gatherings that serve alcohol, nor does he like going into places that serve it. It's also why he's not interested at all in a partner.

[jessicalprice]

not every story is a fable

(reposted from Twitter)

So in reading Christian commentary on NT parables, and its wild and ugly claims about first-century Jews and Judaism, I often find myself wondering how they got there. And I think I've discerned the process. 

It goes a little something like this: 

Christians receive traditional interpretations of what the parables “mean." E.g. the prodigal son means you should forgive people, the good Samaritan means you should help people in need. These meanings are, generally, banal.

Rather than reading the parables as stories, Christians read them as fables with a moral. They read them through the lens of that moral instead of approaching them without a predetermined interpretation.

Christians also believe that the parables must contain revolutionary, radical truths.

So now, they somehow have to resolve the idea that the stories are radical with the fact that their received interpretations are obvious/banal/the same thing plenty of other people have said.

And that goes a little something like this: 

Since (what they believe are) the morals of these stories don't sound radical to contemporary Westerners, they project that radicalness backward onto the parable's original context and audience. That is, it must have been radical/shocking at the time, to the people who first heard it.

Now they have to resolve the dilemma of how something that sounds so banal and obvious to us could have been radical and shocking and scandalous(!) to the original listeners.

Most of them aren't going to say "Jesus's Jewish listeners were incredibly malicious and/or incredibly stupid," at least out loud. So they move to: Projecting that onto Jewish culture, Jewish law, "religious law," etc. 

So then they need to make up norms/customs/attitudes that would make the parable "shocking." If they can find a source that maybe seems to say something that hints in that direction, they'll claim it says a lot more than it does and that it was normative. (E.g. Ben Sira saying you can tell things about a man from how he walks ends up meaning "the villagers would have stoned the father for running to greet his long-lost son" and of course that running to greet your long-lost son would be S H O C K I N G to the listeners.)

It's why they love throwing "ritual purity" in there so much. 

The father in the Prodigal Son story wouldn't embrace his son because he was ritually impure! (If the father was out doing farm stuff and wasn't going to the Temple any time soon, most likely, so was he.)

The kohen and the Levite in the Good Samaritan story passed by the dying man on the side of the road because they were afraid he would make them ritually impure! (The story is very clear they were headed AWAY from Jerusalem, and thus the Temple, so no.)

The Pharisee in the Temple has contempt for the tax collector and doesn't want to stand next to him because he's ritually impure! (No, if the tax collector is in the Temple, he is in a state of ritual purity.)

An anthropologist friend of mine told me that when anthropologists/archaeologists are confronted with an object from an ancient culture and they don't know what it's for, the default category is "ritual object."

Did you dig up a weird-shaped ax that doesn't seem well-designed for either being a weapon OR chopping things? Ritual object. 

Find a statue with some odd characteristics? Ritual object.

"Ritual purity" appears to be to Christian understanding of Jewish customs what "ritual object" is to anthropologists. Anything that doesn't make sense to you, put down to "ritual purity."

So, anyway, the process goes like this: 

parables must be shocking > 

they're not shocking to me > 

they must have been shocking to Jews > 

make up supposed Jewish customs/laws/attitudes that would have made normal behavior "shocking"

It’s exhausting. 

(Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio)

[rambleonwithrosie]

Definitely put it in the tags and comments who your other picks would have been if Tumblr polls allowed multiple selections

[lionofchaeronea]

The Good Samaritan, Théodule Ribot, 1870

[renegadesstuff]

The way Kate put her hand over her mouth after telling Lucy the secret. 🥹🤏💞

[mouseshouses]

Good Samaritans

[dailybehbeh]

Behbeh

[eatommo]

Rebuke [h.]{kd6}

Underwear/tentacles

Day 6!

A/N: This is unlike anything I've ever written, I'm also going to add a dead dove tag here, this involves sentient plantlife, and also could be seen as very dubcon or even venture into noncon. There is no active penetration but there is references to it, and there is sex pollen involved, please continue at your own risk. This is also heavily inspired by @beskarberry with her amazing din fic and @absurdthirst for getting me into sex pollen in the first place, and creating this amazingly challenging kinktober lineup!

C.W: Dubcon/noncon, live plants as bondage, sex pollen, firearms, reader fall unconscious and wakes up missing clothes, theres a (poorly written) undertone of horror here, mentions of succubus, some religious references, this man is half demon, keep that in mind.

Working with the B.P.R.D. had its moments, you’ve witnessed exorcisms, dealt with baba yaga on more than one occasion, and now you were dating your closest friend.  

Red had sent you down into the historical gardens, in search of a medicinal plant that would help banish the succubus living in a White House bathtub.  You were strumming your finger over a flower covered in thin purple dust when your phone starts meowing at you.  

“Any luck? Myers is getting his dick sucked in there.” The deep timbre of his voice doesn’t portray a hint of worry, but on the inhale you take he lets out a soft chuckle, “Not literally, but we’re having no luck here.” 

Your lips pull into a small laugh, “Nothing I’ve found, Abe is already sending me after something else, but just keep the sage burning for a little while longer.” 

“That’s not gonna work, I’ll just have to come to help you.”  He sighs into the phone through a smile.  He was hard to shake, and since the two of you have confessed your feelings for each other, albeit when you both thought the world was going to end,  it's been difficult to spend seconds apart. 

“Alright big boy, see you down here.” You smile into the phone.  Gods, if the professor was still around you’d both be in for it.  

You wonder further into the gardens before coming to a roped-off mausoleum littered with overgrown ivy, and near-rotted caution tape.  This has to be the right place, caution tape was typically a beacon in your line of work.  

You light a flashlight, only to see a trail of steps leading into a dark abyss, great.  You let out an exasperated breath, and let your tired feet carry you down until the light from the garden dissipates.

A few minutes of slow exploration leads you to a giant vine about the width of your arm, it has gatherings of a bright orange flower pearling off of smaller vines like a chain of bells.  You bend over, lowering the flashlight to get a better look at the bulbs.  

You lift a bundle of delicate petals closer to your face, the bead-shaped flowers have an iridescent quality to them, embracing the first light it has likely seen in ages.  A rock a few steps down the hallway startles you as it skids across the hallway and stops with a sharp clack.

Your head on a swivel you bend down to reach for the flashlight in panic, you feel pressure just underneath your ass, and you take a deep breath relieved, “Red, you scared me.” 

The silence, and then the tightening around your leg lulls you back into a panic, and you yell a plea a little louder, praying this is some type of sick joke, “Please? You’re scaring me.” A few agonizing beats of your heart, nothing except a loud rustling sound near your other foot.  

“Fucking hell.”  The two tendrils furl around your legs with astounding strength, as they begin pulling you closer to their source.  You strain against the pull of the vines, digging your heels into the cement until you feel your bones grind together.

You scream and scream for the man who had said he was coming to help you, hoping by the small chance he's somewhere close.  To your horror, another piece of the plant nudges into your back and the second you lurch away it tightens around your abdomen and pulls you against the stock of the plant with a wet crunch.  

A sickeningly sweet yet bitter smell fills your lungs, like over-sweetened coffee.  Immediately your skin feels hot, and sweat beads on your brow and you feel the thick tendrils of it snake further up your body, expertly securing you to itself.  Offshoots of the plant, a hair thinner than your finger trails up your face and edges itself into your mouth.  A rush of the bitter liquid has you blackening out the second it hits your tongue.  

You awake to the sound of gunfire, and flashes of an all too familiar muzzle blind you as you attempt to rouse yourself completely.  Your man raises the Good Samaritan after a slight pause and a bullet zips past your head and sinks into the stalk with a sizzle.  

There's a coolness running down your back, but at first, you are scared it could be blood.  Then you realize your shirt is missing, and your pants are being worked down your legs by hair-like fibers.  

A piece of your brain screams and thrashes against the bonds, but your muscles are lax, and there's an ebbing pain in between your legs.  

With another flash of the muzzle, a chunk of the plant above your head falls free, dripping a wet glob of gelatinous sludge onto your face.  Instantly your body is on the precipice of erupting into flames.  

You turn into a moaning mess and the commotion stops, two flashlights are shown onto the mangled mess that is your captor.  

When his eyes scan over you, it takes everything in him not to smite this place to the ground.  The skin of your torso is flushed and bare, the swells of your breast being smothered against your body by the tight grip of this hellish vegetation.  Your pants are around your ankles, and he watched with bated breath as these thin fibers toy with the white cotton of your underwear, working the fabric down your hips seductively slow.  

He feels like his brain is being rearranged to accommodate nothing but feral and impure thoughts.  His fear is replaced with something carnal, and the beautiful sight of his woman strung open and covered in something so potent to make his cock jump out of anticipation?  That’s a hard moment to pass on for even a man from hell.  

[tomicscomics]

06/24/2022

Just for five minutes?

___

JOKE-OGRAPHY: 1.  In this Bible story, Jesus and friends are heading to Jerusalem.  They try to stay in a Samaritan village, but the Samaritans won't take them in.  The brothers, James and John, ask Jesus if He wants them to call down fire from Heaven to wipe out a town that disrespected Him.  He does not.  Some people think this is why Jesus starts calling them the "Sons of Thunder". 2.  In the second panel, John tells Jesus, "Only say the word and our souls shall have that power," which is a play on the part of Mass where we say, "Only say the word and our souls shall be healed."

[boaringoldguy]

This is a GOOD man..

[ayyy-imma-ninja]

Are SK Sun and Moon perfect gentlemen? Do they help people with their groceries? Help moms get their strollers up stairs? Help pregnant women if they drop something or can't carry something?

Of course! They are both good Samaritans and are courteous, doing their part around town. They will hold doors for people, help carry groceries, assist people with reaching for things, etc.

They do it not only to uphold their innocent image, but they do it to genuinely help and do good.

[jessicalprice]

it was about right then and it’s still about right now

(reposted from Twitter)

(Image: a Tweet by @ ErinGreenbean that says: “Most of Jesus’ parables confront the listener with moving away from self-sufficiency/individualism and toward the whole/community.”)

This is literally what like every Jew who reads the parables has been trying to tell you,  but y'all keep insisting these stories are about how Judaism is bad.

These are stories from a teacher addressing an audience suffering under a brutal and exploitative occupation and they're literally about "you know how the Torah tells us to take care of each other? if we're gonna survive, we have to do that."

We have a text that uses the language of divine kingship frequently to convey a moral imperative if God is truly your leader, you will follow these laws. Jesus talks about the "kingdom of God" and Christians are like HE IS TALKING ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE. 

No, he's fucking talking about a community that existed in his here and now and was suffering and desperate and being militarily and economically and socially pressured to abandon their principles and exploit each other as they were being exploited by the Romans.

And he's reminding them that while the Romans may be occupying them, they don't have to rule them. Resisting hegemony and not letting it reshape you always involves, in a way, creating and choosing to occupy a different reality. 

In a society that--to use the language of the time, which I will be upfront that I do NOT like--acknowledges God as king, no one starves unless literally everyone is starving, because there are laws insisting that we share. Like, that's the whole point of every Jewish law touching on economics: what we have, even if it doesn't feel like much, can be enough when we understand that we are enough for each other. That’s there in the lost sheep, coin, and son(s) parables: you don't leave anyone behind.

There's the two men on the road to Jericho: The Samaritans are actually our family. We remembered that once, when they put Jewish prisoners on donkeys and sent them home with wine and oil. We have to take care of each other.

Then the men named above proceeded to take the captives in hand, and with the booty they clothed all the naked among them—they clothed them and shod them and gave them to eat and drink and anointed them and provided donkeys for all who were failing and brought them to Jericho, the city of palms, back to their kinsmen. Then they returned to Samaria. (II Chronicles 28:15)

All of these stories are about remembering that we're supposed to be family and taking care of each other and upholding a society that's an alternative to the hegemonic Roman war machine. And then Christian exegesis is all: how do we make these stories about how being Jewish is bad? We're in a whole different millennium and y'all are still insisting that Judaism was the problem Jesus came to solve.

Jesus tells a trilogy of stories about noticing when you've lost track of someone or something and Christians are like, "This must be a story about how Judaism hates the idea of accepting someone's repentance." 

Excuse me while I go build a menorah constructed of middle fingers.

Jesus tells a story about the relationship between two men in the Temple in which the real question is What does each of them do next and what is their responsibility to each other? and Christians are like this is about how the tax collector is good and the Pharisee is bad.

Y'all want so badly to make these stories about an us vs. them when the focus of most of them is just about "how can we do better as an 'us'?"

Like look at the parable of the four fates for seeds--what was actually happening to most of the harvest was that people were taking it, but Jesus puts it in terms of natural phenomena to take focus off that and put it on the hardship itself.

Most of the time, when there is an implied "them" to the "us" he's focused on, he tries to portray it as if it's inevitable/natural/etc. 

The focus isn't on "what are they doing to us?" 

It's on "what are we doing FOR each other?"

And you know what we know now, what we have terms and framing and concepts for? We know that in the wake of disaster, human beings get really good at caring for each other. We suck at being a society when things are good, but if a monsoon hits? We fucking get to work. 

But you know what got documented in heartbreaking detail after the Exxon Valdez spill? When the disaster is human-caused, communities tend to fall apart.

So what's the difference? 

Well, we can frame it in terms of human-created versus natural disasters but we can also frame it in terms of the victims' response.

It seems like, if we feel like it wasn't anyone's fault, it was just chance or nature or whatever, we get energized to take care of each other. If, on the other hand, we feel like it was someone's fault, we fracture.

Now, I don't think people around the Mediterranean in the first century CE were thinking in terms of disaster trauma or spontaneous prosocial behavior, but that doesn't mean they weren't thinking about what to focus on when they were suffering. 

To be honest, I don't see a consistent through-line in 100% of Jesus's parables. I don't even believe that all of the parables attributed to him were actually his, if he even existed as portrayed. But I do see a through-line in most of them. And that through-line is a direction of attention toward the needs of others and away from blame. And I genuinely believe that was because he was trying to keep his community whole and hopeful.

And it's ironic to me that even supposedly progressive Christian interpreters are still sitting there being like "he as calling out problems with Judaism.”

No, he was doing exactly the opposite.

[momentsbeforemass]

Can you tell?

The Good Samaritan.

It’s a parable people know, even if they don’t know Jesus. And it’s today’s Gospel.

One of the classic spiritual exercises is to picture yourself as one of the characters in a parable.

Ask yourself, if you had to choose, which character is most like you? Whose actions are closest to what you would do? Who are you in this story?

And then re-read the parable from that person’s viewpoint.

If you really try to do it, if you take your time and let that person’s perspective soak in? If you sit with the feelings of that person?

It won’t just change how you see the parable. It can change how you see yourself. It can give you a real window onto your own soul.

Of course, with the Good Samaritan, there’s no question about which character you and I are supposed to be:

Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers' victim?"

He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy."

Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

That’s who I’m supposed to be. If I’m a Christian.

I don’t mean someone who says they’re a Christian or who makes a bunch a Jesus-sounding noises.

I mean, if I’m really a Christian. If I’m trying to live my life as a follower of Christ, then it should be obvious where I fit into the parable of the Good Samaritan.

If that’s true, then here’s the real question. Looking at me and how I live my life – do you know where I fit into this parable?

Can you tell?

Today’s Readings

[sundaynightservice]

Luke 10:30-34

Samaritan sins

did not lay him in the street,

judgement watched him bleed,

pretentiousness left him there,

unfeigned love tended each wound.

.

D W Eldred

[renegadesstuff]

I missed them SO much 🥹💞💞