Hidden Questions

The ethical question we can never answer is not the one we're not asking (we may get to that one, eventually) but the one partially veiled by the one we are asking.Someone asked Jesus once what neighbors he needed to love. He told a parable* about two enemies that crossed paths on a road. One was barely alive in a ditch, having just been robbed and beaten, and the other was healthy and able. The healthy enemy, in shocking fashion, chose to care for the dying man, put him up in a hotel, and returned to assure he had recovered a few days later. Jesus told the questioner to go and be like the enemy that was not an enemy at all, but instead a loving neighbor.This is profound because the parable answers the question that wasn’t being asked but hiding just underneath the one being asked. It answered the question, “What neighbors do I not have to love?” There aren’t any. Or, “Who can I exclude?” No one. Or, “Do I really have to be kind to that animal, that jerk, that disgrace of a person?” Yup.The ethical questions we’re concealing we conceal because in them our real work is revealed.Don’t hide your real work behind the questions you ask.*The Parable of the Good Samaritan