Pathos and the Strange

Dear Dr. Kearney,
As PhD student in the Theology and Education program, I am interested in a "theology of neighbor."  I've been thinking about how our readings and discussions connect with the parable of the Good Samaritan (where neighbor becomes more than fellow Jew, and even beyond that, more than object but subject, when Jesus concludes the parable with the question, "Who was neighbor to the robbers' victim?").
I found myself thinking about the parable of the Good Samaritan this week because the Samaritan encounters the other and is moved with compassion.  In Luke’s Gospel, the word 'compassion' only appears in two other accounts: in Jesus, when he raises the widow’s son (7:13) and in the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son (15:20).  In light of the essay by Waldenfels, in the section "Strangeness as Pathos" (p. 8), the author seems to hint that we are passive to the strange, or at least subject to the strange encountering us.  I wouldn't disagree; it seems rather unlikely that we can initiate an experience with the strange from within ourselves.  But I keep thinking about the contrast between the Samaritan (out, on the road to Jericho) and the Prodigal Father (as one might call him) (out, waiting for his prodigal son to come home).  There's something strange about a Samaritan caring for a Jew who has been beaten and robbed.  That's not to say it isn't strange to have the younger son ask for his inheritance (what inheritance?), spend it, and then get welcomed back with open arms. Waldenfels says, alluding to Nietzsche, "what is strange comes when it wishes, not when I wish."  Waldenfels follows this with a point about learning from the strange, but doesn't this first require an openness to the strange, a posture of welcome or even hospitality?  Isn't that the difference between the priest and Levite and the Samaritan; the Samaritan is open to and engages with the strange (whereas the priest and Levite cross to the other side of the road).  Likewise, the Prodigal Father accepts the strange (the younger son who asks for the inheritance to which he has no claim; the son who has spent what was not his to spend).  I'm not sure these are good examples of hospitality (the Samaritan stumbles upon the robbers' victim in the road and the Prodigal Father is irresponsibly lavish with his son), but there is something of hospitality in their responses to the strange.
I was wondering if you'd care to comment on this disappointingly brief section in Waldenfels' essay.  True, strangeness as pathos is something we cannot initiate or always anticipate, but isn't it more important/interesting to consider the pathos in our response to the strange?
Thanks for your time and insight.
pax et bonum,
marc

Dear Marc,
In terms of our discussion in class on Tuesday, I suppose the neighbor is an example of the stranger who looks 'towards us' (rather than the hidden face that withdraws) - hence our pathos, namely, our reception of the face of the stranger as a foreigner who address us. This pathos may in turn become an active praxis to the extent that we respond hospitably to the face that calls us. This praxis would refer to the caring response to the Jew by the Samaritan (the foreigner to Jews) in the good Samaritan story;  and, in the second story,  to the  forgiveness/hosting/welcoming back of the estranged prodigal son by the father.
Praxis in each case actively responds to a prior pathos of receptivity or passivity which 'suffers' the stranger to come unto us (or come back to us, come home, in the case of prodigal son). Better still, I think we could say that in these two examples the pathos and praxis of hospitality occur both as once.
The question of Jesus is: who is my neighbor? Namely who is the one who is near, next door, a fellow citizen, a familiar in some way? And Jesus replies to the question by making it the question of the stranger from afar, the estranged one, the alien or foreigner who only becomes near through an act of healing and pardon.....The Jew's own neighbors pass him by while it is the Samaritan stranger who becomes near from afar, familiar from unfamiliar, heimlich from unheimlich, who cares and thus becomes the good neighbor.
It is interesting, moreover, that the Samaritan brings the wounded Jew to a hostel, hospital, hospice - thereby showing how a situation of violent hostility is converted into hospitality. The parable thus seems to be saying that the alien/enemy/foreigner of the nation becomes a neighbour by hosting his stranger (the Jew) so that he (the stranger Samaritan) can become a guest in turn - that is a true neighbour to Jews in their homeland.
One might also compare the good Samaritan story with Jesus's exchange with the Samaritan woman at the well, or the healing of the lepers--when it is only the Samaritan leper who returns to say thanks for Jesus's hospitality in welcoming him in all his 'strangeness' (disease as well as foreignness).
Hopes this helps a little?
with thanks and best wishes
     
Prof Kearney

I just thought I'd put this up to see if people had thoughts. I can't get it out of my head, but I don't know what to make of it eitherThank you, Chris, for a thought provoking presentation.