As I have journeyed with others over the years, and especially now in our Baptist Movement I have noticed that the questions we ask are really important.
Jesus is asked a really significant question: who is my neighbour?
He tells this incredible story:
Jesus says a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell into the hands of robbers.
During this story we see different people all walking down the same road:
Jesus points out these different characters on the road and how they relate to their neighbours who are walking alongside.
A priest came by – You see the priest loved God but he didn’t want to risk loving others; because loving others had a great cost for the priest.
If he touched blood; the blood of this man who had been beaten he would have become ‘unclean’ which means he would have been excluded from the temple.
He would not have been able to do his job!
And so, he justifies himself; he thinks: ‘well I am helping an awful lot of people in the temple and getting dirty and bloody like this is going to put me out of action – so I am just going to carry on and do the work that God set out for me to do – someone else can sort out this man who is lying on the floor.’
We can find a host of practical reasons to avoid the service of God; Because the service of God is highly impractical
Then a Levite came past: they were concerned with the law and with legality – and sometimes we can get consumed by religiosity and legalism too.
Some people use the sword of truth as a dagger of hate – and our assumption is that God’s judgement is the first thing and not his grace.
Then a Samaritan came where the man was and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine and then put the man on his own donkey; brought him to an inn and took care of him.
The first question that the priest asked and the first question the Levite asked was: ‘if I stood to help this man, what will happen to me?
But then the Samaritan came by and reversed the question: if I don’t stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
The Samaritan exercises this simple humanity; not a complex religiosity like the other two men who walked past – and he risks his own safety for the sake of this stranger.
What I find fascinating in this text is we have named it: ‘The Good Samaritan’ – it’s not called the hero Samaritan or Rich Samaritan or Popular Samaritan – but Jesus just calls this Samaritan a neighbour…
How do you get on with your neighbours?
It was never God’s intention that the church became a little building on the side of the road.
But we are on this road, transforming those around us by being a neighbour – how are you offering God’s grace and hospitality today: how are you being a neighbour in the Kingdom of God?
This weeks thought has been written by Revd Hayley Young, President of Baptists Together
Photo by Gleren Meneghin on Unsplash
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