The Good Samaritan

The tale of the Good Samaritan.  It's one that we all know, after all it has rather entered the English language to mean those who stretch out their hands to help those in need.  If you are anything like me then several of your teachers in Primary School probably read it to you and told you that it was the ideal of what it meant to be a good person; someone who helps others no matter what the danger.  But there is a side to the tale that is often swept uunder a rug.

When Jesus first told that story the relationship between Jews and Samaritans could not have been much more hostile.  The Samaritans were seen as the result of what happened when some of the Jews, who were left behind when one of their conqueres had carted off most of their people, intermarried with the people their conquerer had sent to Israel to occupy the land.  As such they were seen as half breeds, mongels and any other words that means scum.  In short people who are "not like us".  So when Jesus told that story he was portraying the Samaritans, the people who are "not like us", to be a compassionate, worthy people.  In many ways he was attacking the boundaries that the rulers of the time put up to seperate "us" from "them".

So the tale of the Good Samaritan is not just an illustration of the true ideal of what it means to be a good person, it also an illustration of what needs to be done when ever you mean a boundary that seperates "us" from "them" - find a way to cross it.  The easiest way to do this?  Help someone in need even if they are of a different colour, creed, religion or sexuality from you.

After all, if Jesus came to start his ministery a new in this era who would he go to?  The rich, the healthy, the good looking and the heterosexual?  Or would he go to the poor, the disabled, the ugly and the homosexuals?  Would he go, in short, to the outcaste of society?  Considering it was the outcaste, the "sinners", that he went to last time?  You don't have to believe he was the Son of God to consider the standard of behaviour he set to be a good one, if not the easy one.

If you had to stand and justify your life to yourself, which would you prefer to say?  "I did what was easy" or "I did what was right"?