The parable of the Good Samaritan.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is oft retold. The Samaritans were northern neighbours of the Jews, and claimed descendancy from Israel’s northern tribes, but were regarded by the Jews as impure, with great hostility between the two peoples.
In the story the two Jewish religious leaders avoided the naked and beaten man, (perhaps because that would make them ritually unclean), but regardless, it was only the despised Samaritan that showed neighbourly love.
Consider the exchange between Jesus and the questioner after the story:
36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Perhaps there was a bitter taste in the questioner’s mouth, not even naming the man as a Samaritan, but indirectly as the one who showed mercy, and being told to follow the example of a despised Samaritan may have been galling.
It makes me ask, who do I disregard or disparage?
A passage that challenges is: 1 Corinthians 12:22–23: 22 “On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honourable we treat with special honour.”
It reminds me that in the Kingdom, sometimes those I am most willing to ignore are the ones that I have the most to learn from.
Ricky Beswick
Lay Preacher