I Desire Mercy, Not Mission Trips

in favor of solidarity

Christians have a savior complex.

Whether it’s regarding people without houses, orphans in “underdeveloped” areas, or the “unsaved” in third world countries, we are convinced we can help them.

On the surface, this seems to make sense. We have more resources—what a benign euphemism for the unstable explosive of money—and the ability to use those resources for the good of those in need. It seems to make sense that we send people on mission trips with those resources to help build orphanages, to feed those without houses, to hep convert the local population that needs Jesus.

Here’s the thing though: none of these actions are solidarity with those we are seeking to help. Anything we do to “save” other people is most likely don’t from a place of superiority.

Economically, we deem people “less fortunate” when they don’t make the same paycheck we do.

Theologically, we deem people as lost in sin, without access to God unless we step in.

Culturally, we assume that if people live in a society that looks different from us in the developed west, they are uncultured and in need of education and development.

From on high, we look down and see the plight of the poor, wretched souls below us. Then we work to do what we can to lift them up to our level.

Which, in other words, is colonialism.

Colonialism is what keeps us in our ivory towers watching while the world burns, deciding when and where to send down an envoy with a bucket or two of water.

The most sinister thing we as Christians driven by this savior complex can do is disguise colonialism as neighbor love.

Colonialism is the systemic assertion of control by one group over another—geographically, culturally, economically, spiritually—often under the disguise of benevolence or moral superiority. That disguise of goodness and care is nothing short of deceit and bearing false witness about our motives and intentions.

We long to save people, and the way we save people is by turning them into us.

This isn’t loving our neighbor. This is colonizing them so that we can feel better.

If we want to see what loving our neighbor looks like, we need to look to solidarity, the practice of entering another’s suffering without superiority, of choosing presence over power, of staying with the wounded as equals rather than saving them.

Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan is a perfect case study in solidarity as neighbor love.

In Luke 10.25ff, a man who studied and taught the Jewish torah came to Jesus with a question.

“Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

I have a feeling this question was debated and talked about by the religious lawyers of the day. So this lawyer was bringing Jesus into an ongoing conversation.

Jesus, in very Rabbinic fashion, turns the question back to the asker, “What do you read in the Law you study and teach?”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Quoting the two greatest commandments of the Torah, the man answers his own question.

Jesus: “correct. Do this and you will have that life you crave.”

This exchange could have ended there… but it didn’t.

See, the lawyer needed to do what each of us continues to do to this day—the man needed to justify himself. He needed to prove he was righteous, that he was just. He wanted to prove to Jesus and the crowd that he was already doing these things, that he was already inheriting the eternal life he was querying about.

The lawyer wanted to prove he was already right.

So, he started the long tradition of asking, “and just who is my neighbor?”

No matter how you inflect this question, it’s all about self-justification, about proving that we’re already doing it, that we are already loving the right people, and by extension only excluding the people we don’t have to love.

It’s funny, Jesus says, “Love God and love people” and we keep asking, “which people?”

So, Jesus tells a story to show what neighbor love looks like.

“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.’”

Thus was born the parable of the good Samaritan, that story that has been scandalizing everyone for thousands of years.

It wasn’t the priest—the man of God—that stopped for the man left for dead. It wasn’t the Levite—the ritually clean—that choose to save the man’s life.

It was the Samaritan.

Let me spell out this scandal:

Jews regarded Samaritans as heretics and half-breeds. After the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel (722 BCE), many Israelites were exiled, and the region was repopulated with foreigners. The resulting mixed population became the Samaritans. Samaritans rejected Jerusalem’s authority and its priesthood, holding only the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures) as authoritative scripture and insisting that Mount Gerizim (not Jerusalem) was the proper place to worship Yahweh. By the time of Jesus (1 century CE), the relationship was hostile, distrustful, and marked by religious, ethnic, and political tension. They weren’t just rivals—they were bitter enemies who each believed the other had abandoned the true faith.

Two respected Jewish religious figures walk past the wounded man—who was probably a Jew—and refuse to help him. It’s a Samaritan, the very person a Jewish audience would have seen as least likely to help that stops. This wasn’t just a story about kindness. This was—is—a story that reversed moral expectations and disrupted ethnic and religious prejudice.

That’s why it was such a scandalous answer to the self-justifying question of, “who is my neighbor?” It was the one the listeners never expected that stopped and helped the wounded man. Someone who hated Jews—and who the Jews hated—was the one that stepped in with love and mercy. The foreigner turned out to be the neighbor.

So the Samaritan is the neighbor that stops to help the wounded man. But what does this teach us about solidarity and decolonization?

In short, everything.

See, it wasn’t the Samaritan coming down from on high to rescue the poor man. The Samaritan comes near to the man. He doesn’t offer thoughts and prayers. He offers presence, nearness; he makes the man his physical neighbor, not just a metaphorical one.

In that coming near, the Samaritan doesn’t know who the man is, he only sees what is there: a beaten man, stripped, humiliated, wounded, and left for dead. The text says that the Samaritan was “moved with pity.” The Greek word for pity is about feeling the weight of the wounded in your gut. It is compassion, a sharing in the suffering. Feeling for someone, not in an abstract way, but in a visceral, physical way. You feel with them. Solidarity is more than aid. It’s letting the pain of another touch you.

The Samaritan doesn’t outsource the care. He chooses to be near and to act himself for the good of the wounded man. He uses his own resources—oil, wine, money—to create a co-suffering presence of healing for the wounded man. And he promises to return, to continue the relationship, to continue being a neighbor.

Here’s the kicker: the Samaritan does this without expecting a return. The Samaritan doesn’t know how long the man will stay in the inn or if the man would even be thankful. The Man might cuss the Samaritan out, choosing hate over gratitude. But that’s not the Samaritan’s concern. He simply chooses to be a neighbor, at his own expense, because he chooses presence and co-suffering love.

This is solidarity.

Solidarity is the way we decolonize neighbor love.

Our Christian mission trips, our efforts to feed the houseless, our attempts to throw money at the problem of poverty… these all may come from a good impetus, but they are colonization of the wounded. We seek to come in like some sort of off brand Jesus and save the day. We are offering ourselves as the answer, and the way to obtain that answer, that help, is to become like us. Give up your identity, your native culture, your indigenous knowledge, your life, everything that makes you everything you are, and become like me. That is what Europe did to the Americas and what we continually do to others we deem less fortunate than us.

But what are we imposing on them? Capitalism. White supremacy. Patriarchy. Under the guise of benign aid, we are smuggling in evil.

That’s not salvation.

But…

If we sit in solidarity, come near, offer presence, see people for what they are—including the image of God—and offer ourselves up to compassion, to suffering with them, then whatever money, resources, good things we have to offer become communally shared because we see ourselves in the same place as the other people who are suffering. We are all afflicted by the systems of power and oppression in this world. And from that shared affliction, we who have privilege can set it down and love mercy, choose presence, open space for others to have the center, become the marginalized, and choose to remain with people rather than throwing some magical ladder down with the option to conform or die.

Jesus once says, “go learn what it means where it says, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” That is a lesson we must learn.

God doesn’t want our piety, our self-justifying questions, or our assurance that we have the answers. God wants us to have mercy, pity, compassion for our neighbors, the people we come into contact with that need help, need love, need life.

Through solidarity, we can learn to decolonize our missionary efforts and transform them into pure neighbor love. Love is what we need because deep, true love for each other is how we get out of this fucking mess that we are all entangled with. When we love, we free ourselves from scarcity and poverty of imagination. Through solidarity we can reimagine together this world system and begin to shape the kingdom of God here and now while we wait to see our liberation unveiled.

We need each other.

Go now and fulfill that need.