StorytellerSample

By far, this is one of Jesus’ most famous parables. Even if you’re not much of a church person, you’ve probably heard of a “good Samaritan.” But, sometimes when a story is so familiar, we run the risk of tuning out a little bit. It’s really easy to miss the deeply convicting implications of a story when it feels like you’ve heard it a million times. 

So, just to make sure we’re all on the same page, this story comes in response to a guy who is trying to justify himself before Jesus. He thinks he does a pretty good job of obeying God, that he’s probably more “righteous” than most people…but he’s trying to find a loophole in the system by asking Jesus to clarify exactly who this “neighbor” is that he’s supposed to love as much as himself. And so Jesus begins teaching by telling him a story…classic Jesus.

In the story, this dude is mugged and left for dead on the side of the road. Two different guys who worked at the Temple (essentially, the pastors of the day) came walking by, and both of them literally crossed to the other side of the road so they wouldn’t have to encounter the mugging victim. Imagine that – they’re out for a walk, see this dude who’s bleeding and badly hurt lying on the side of the road ahead of them, and they think, “gross…and I really don’t have time for this today…just gonna step over here and quietly walk on by…ah, that’s better.” And they continue on their way…it’s psychotic! Of course, the story has a happy ending when the Samaritan (who, by the way, all the Jewish people of the day looked down on…it was as if they were subhuman in their social structure) comes walking by and engages with this poor guy. He goes out of his way, sacrifices his own time, supplies, and cold-hard-cash to make sure this guy gets the help he needs. And Jesus ends his story with the challenge that we should treat all people this way – essentially answering this man’s question by saying “everybody is your neighbor!”

Now, most of us probably don’t encounter mugging victims on a regular basis, but that doesn’t mean this story doesn’t apply to every single day of our lives. All around us are people that need some sort of help. They need someone to talk to, they need physical things like money or food, some people just need a friend – they need to not feel so crushingly alone. And what do we do so often? We block it all out. Head down…phone in hand…earbuds in. Our version of crossing the road is just to distract ourselves with our phones. It’s not that we don’t know those people are there, but we’d rather not engage. It’s so much easier to create our own little cocoon to block out the world around us, and we assume and hope someone else will meet the needs that surround us every day. 

So, here’s what I think Jesus’ 21st Century moral of the story would be for us: take out the earbuds, put down the phone, and engage! Whatever your typical method for ignoring the world around you is, make people more important than your comfort or entertainment. I’m not saying you can’t use your phone or listen to music, but when there are people around you…put away the distractions and engage with them. You never know what huge things God could do if you were just willing to engage, to start a conversation, to ask someone how they’re doing, or to look up and see the person who legitimately needs your help in that moment. It’s such a seemingly simple action that can seriously change someone’s life! So, don’t be those first two guys (no one who hears this story likes them anyway)…let’s be “good Samaritans” in our world, and it starts with looking up, removing distractions, and engaging.