Breaking the Rule of Threes

Breaking the Rule of Threes--August 4, 2017

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." [Luke 10:29-37]

In comedy, it's called the "rule of threes."

Whether you have heard of the rule of threes before or not, you've surely seen it before in action.  The basic gist is that a joke often works best when you have an expectation that is first set-up by a premise (part one), then reinforced by a second similar example (part two), and then up-ended by an unexpected conclusion (part three).  Ever heard a joke that starts with, "There's a brunette, a redhead, and a blonde..." or "A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar..." or "An Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman are at a tattoo parlor..." or even just "There are these three missionaries in the jungle..." ?  Well, those are all structured with the rule of three.  The first two characters are there to set up an expectation, so that the third one can provide the punch line--a reversal of expectations, and a laughable surprise.  Voila--a joke is born.

The same happens in classic stories and fairy tales, too, even if it's not aimed at getting a laugh.  The Three Billy Goats Gruff is built on the rule of threes (the first two goats set up the showdown at the end with the third goat and the troll), and the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is built on three sets of threes--the trio of the Mama Bear's, Papa Bear's, and Baby Bear's porridge, and then their chairs, and then their beds--where, surprise, surprise, Goldilocks is found sleeping! Even when it's not about building to a punch line, the Rule of Threes helps us to decode a story we are listening to: once you recognize someone is telling a story built on the Rule of Threes, you know to listen for the big contrast between the first two and the final, unexpected third entry in the triad.  We listen to stories and jokes this way all the time--we just may not realize how much our brains are processing and recognizing structures like the Rule of Threes even without having a name for it.

Well, for whatever else we say about Jesus (and there is more than this--just no less than it, either), Jesus knows how to tell a good story.  And he knows the basic Rule of Threes as well--in fact, he is counting on his hearers to know and understand it, as well.  When an expert in the Torah comes to Jesus asking about whom he really has to show kindness toward--that is, who "counts" as a neighbor, that he has to keep the commandment about loving his neighbor--Jesus answers with a set-up for a story that is built on the Rule of Threes.  Once the premise is laid out (a man fallen upon by thieves and left for dead), Jesus starts introducing stock characters like in a joke, and Jesus' first listeners would have known how to hear what he was saying. 

So when Jesus starts by describing a priest (clearly a religious professional) and then a Levite (another person with a career in religious enterprises), everybody in the audience knows that someone is going to come along as a counter-example.  The priest and the Levite (those Ivy-League educated elites who have cushy religious jobs and are disconnected from real, everyday people!) are pictured as out of touch and so pre-occupied with themselves and their own greatness that they can't be bothered to stop and help the man laying in the ditch. Jesus has got the blue-collar, working class people in his audience nodding affirmatively as he tells his story so far--"Yeah, Jesus, you tell it!  That's just how those big-wig Jerusalem religious elites are! They act like they are so educated and so pious, but they wouldn't help someone like us if we were in need! They are so out of touch!" By this point, everyone is ready for Jesus to stick it to those stuffy religious professionals (that everybody thought had sold out to the Romans to get their cushy positions in the Temple) by having an ordinary common workaday person come to the rescue.  Everyone is expecting Jesus to complete the Rule of Three by having Joseph P. Israelite, or some other stand-in for the common folk of Judah, come in and save the day, thus shaming the priest and Levites, but also making the people in Jesus' audience feel like they are the heroes.  They expect the reversal in the story to be somebody just like them to be the third traveler who comes along and helps.  And in that case, it would be a story of Israelites taking care of their own--good ol' insiders taking care of another good ol' insider, like members of a club helping each other out, or fraternity brothers or sorority sisters throwing each other some business or doing favors for each other... because they are all in-group members. 

That's what everybody is expecting--because one of the assumptions of the Rule of Three is that the third thing or person in the joke or story has to be enough like the first two that they feel like they still all have something in common.  The joke is never, "An Englishman, a Scotsman, and a ham sandwich..." or "A priest, a rabbi, and an ethereal feeling of existential angst walk into a bar."  Goldilocks has to break into the home of three similar creatures for the set-up and the surprise to work--it can't be a Mama Bear, a Papa Bear, and the New York Philharmonic who live in the house.  So in Jesus' story, when it starts out with a priest, and then moves to a Levite (both definite "insiders", but decreasing amounts of religious professional status), the expectation is that the third person in his story will be another insider, but just a "layperson" so to speak--a good obedient, respectable, Torah-observing Judean... not a religious professional, but a decent upstanding member of the community.  Jesus' hearers are ready for this to be a story that pokes fun and lobs criticism at the religious professional class of his day and lifts up the virtuous respectable ordinary citizen of Judea.

But apparently, Jesus didn't get that memo.

Or, more likely, Jesus knows what everybody is expecting, and wants to adjust their vision yet again.  This is what makes Jesus' story--that seems basically harmless to us, probably--so powerful and even subversive.  Jesus doesn't pick a respectable insider to complete the Rule of Three and provide the surprising twist to rescue the man in the ditch when the first two pass him by.  Jesus doesn't pick a good ol' boy member of the "right" religious and ethnic group.  He picks an outsider--not just any outsider, but someone from a group that was hated with passion and vitriol.  He picks someone who is ethnically not considered Jewish, religiously considered to believe the wrong things about God and worships in the wrong place, culturally excluded, and who doesn't even speak the "right" language (Samaritan Hebrew/Aramaic and Judean Hebrew/Aramaic became distinct languages with variations on their alphabets over the centuries, much the way Spanish, Italian, and French, or German and English were all once relate but have now become distinct langauges). 

Jesus picks a Samaritan.

And beyond that--and this is really the part that would stick in everyone's craw in Jesus' audience--Jesus picks a Samaritan, not to be the butt of a joke, or even to be the recipient of pity from some good, upstanding Jew like his hearers were, but rather to be the hero, the example of someone who really "gets" what the Torah is all about.

That's scandalous to the hearers of Jesus' story--it intends to break wide open their view of the world.  They were prepared for a story that would stroke their own egos and make themselves feel like they were all already good little boys and girls who only needed to worry about taking care of their own... and Jesus blows that up and turns it upside down by making the hero of the story a foreigner who doesn't speak the language and has the wrong religion.  It is like Jesus walking into your church's Bible study group and making a Syrian refugee the hero of the story, while the pastors and "Christian counselors" all walk right on past the man laying in the road. It is like Jesus making someone you were taught to be afraid of, someone you were taught to keep out, into the example you were supposed to be following. 

The Samaritan in Jesus' story does not have the right religious, linguistic, or cultural credentials. He may not have the right paperwork, but the Samaritan does understand neighborliness  That is to say, he does understand the basic, essential call of God to care for any and all who are in need, not just the people who are like me.  And on that point, the Samaritan "gets" what the commandment about loving neighbor was supposed to mean all along.

Now, if we let Jesus' story do its work on us, we should be prepared to have our eyesight changed. 

If we let Jesus' story do what he intends it to do for us (and to us), we will no longer see the world in terms of "us" insiders who are worthy of our help, and "them" outsiders to whom we have no obligation. 

If we let Jesus' story change us as he means to, we will no longer be satisfied to look out for the interests of "people like me" or only "people who speak my language" or only "people who have the right religions like me." 

If we let Jesus' story give us new eyes on the world, we will no longer applaud ideas or plans that are targeted only to help "Me and My Group First". 

And instead, we will see that Jesus is daring us to view the world itself differently, and all the faces in it differently. We will see we are called to not only "welcome" people like that Samaritan, or whomever else we have put in the category of "not my neighbor"... but in fact we are called to learn from this outsider who gets neighbor-love better than the people with the right religion and the acceptable language.

If we think we can listen to Jesus' story and not be scandalized by the way it changes our view of everything, we are not hearing him correctly.

Today, hear this story again--hear it and let it both scandalize and energize.  Hear it and let Jesus' story change our vision.  Let it show you the neighbors who have been put along your path, both for you to love and to love you, who were there all along and have been waiting to be let into your world.

Lord Jesus, take the words we have heard a thousand times and let us hear them with the force and power and surprise you intended... and let our eyes and our hearts be changed in the act.