The Good Samaritan: Compassion Trumps Personal Convenience
(Posted July 13, 2019)
“Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920's and 1930's when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother's keeper.” --- Hubert H. Humphrey, 20th Century Statesman
There’s no doubt about it. We live in a high anxiety time. People who once could carry on a civil conversation with someone they might not agree with find themselves not only skeptical about the stranger, but fearful and disrespectful as well, for no other reason than that person is “not part of their tribe.” There are conversations about who are the monsters under our bed. In fact, WE are the Monsters, if indeed we pander to fear and suspicion of people we’ve never met.
Church Services on Sunday
Join Us at Our New Summer Starting Time of 9:30 a.m. for a wonderful message and special music by extraordinary Oboe Soloist Sue Goff. See you there!
This Sunday we encounter a passage in the Gospel so profoundly intended for our own times that we ought not look away, but listen, carefully. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is intended to break down those walls we create between ourselves and the people we meet. More than that, this story told by Jesus to an attorney trying to trip him up INSISTS that we are not only brother and sister, but we are responsible for that other person we meet when they are in distress. No exceptions.
You can’t work your way around this story. Its message lies at the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. And if you can’t embrace its message of compassion that trumps personal convenience, I’d suggest that you ought to be thinking twice before you call yourself a perfect Christian.
This Sunday we will hear some astounding real-life stories about how people who are completely different in culture, religion and philosophy have willingly, even eagerly helped the stranger in their midst.
We may, after listening to these true tales, begin to realize that perhaps we’re less like the Good Samaritan than we are the victim beaten in the ditch. We are dependent on God coming to our rescue, to bind up our anxieties with compassion, and to lift us up in a new dedication to less judgment and more acceptance of the person we meet on this road to Jericho.