Mercy costs. Caring takes time. Showing compassion can be risky. Love is challenging. Yet Jesus insists we do such things. This Sunday’s Gospel in the last week of the Season of Pentecost, offers us that popular parable of the Good Samaritan. In it Jesus challenges us to do the right thing. We take it for granted that people know how to care for others, to be a good neighbor. It should come naturally to us – if someone is in dire straits, we stop and help. Yet that is not the case and increasingly so.
In the parable two people passed by and did nothing to help the stranger. It was the third person who refused to simply be a ‘passer-by.’ In today’s society we hear more and more each day of brutal attacks while their friends look on and laugh and encourage the violence. Too many others turn a blind eye to the desperate plight. Have we lost the ability to care or did we ever possess it? Jesus tells of the Good Samaritan’s effort to care for the beaten stranger. The first and most important point was that ‘he was moved with pity’ (v33). We need to learn to open our hearts, become vulnerable, to see the other as Christ. The Samaritan then bandaged the wound, carries the man, takes him to an inn, pays any costs incurred and returns to check upon him.
Yes, it takes time and effort to care for others, but really is there anything more important to do with our time than to love one another? Amen