However, I say to you, love your enemy, bless the one who curses you, do something wonderful for the one who hates you, be and respond to the very ones who persecute you by praying for them. Matthew 5:44-45 (TPT)
The Good Samaritan – Neighbors Series – Part 7
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8
Jesus could have pointed his finger at the Lawyer who asked, “Who is my neighbor” and reprimanded him, demanding that he love all and that he should have known better.
“Get your act together lawyer! Don’t you know that the Kingdom of God is at hand?!”
Instead, he takes a personal, kind and generous approach. A method that disrupts worldviews and thought patterns.
He tells a story.
Parables are NOT allegories or fairy tales meant to convey a single message, they are disruptive stories that get under the skin and poke around in the deep, dark recesses of our hearts.
Challenging us, changing us.
A few days ago we shared a quote from Martin Luther King Jnr’s final speech. He said of the Priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan:
“It’s possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho Road is a dangerous road… In the days of Jesus, it came to be known as the ‘Bloody Pass’… And so the first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’”
But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”
Fear, prejudice, ignorance, bias… it's these emotions/ideologies/views that keep us from our “enemies” who may not actually be our enemies at all.
This parable puts flesh and blood on scriptures like Matt 5:44-45 (TPT) which says,
“However, I say to you, love your enemy, bless the one who curses you, do something wonderful for the one who hates you, be and respond to the very ones who persecute you by praying for them.”
And Luke 6:29-32, “To those who despise you, continue to serve them and minister to them. If someone takes away your coat, give him as a gift your shirt as well. When someone comes to beg from you, give to that person what you have. When things are wrongly taken from you, do not demand they be given back. However you wish to be treated by others is how you should treat everyone else. Are you really showing true love by only loving those who love you back?”
This parable doesn’t only teach us to be like the Samaritan: helping those in need, that out neighbor is whoever needs our help. Another view is that we – the privileged, the wealthy, the seemingly more educated members of our global society – may actually be the ones dead and dying in a ditch of selfishness, greed, dualism and capitalism.
Perhaps if we opened our eyes and accepted the outstretched hands of the Samaritans in our world – their stories, pains, heartaches, lessons – their humanity – we might find the salvation we’re looking for. In the embrace of our enemy, we may actually learn how to live together in the world.
Are we willing to do that?
More violence will not end this deplorable cycle of violence that is spinning out of control in our world. It will take men like that Samaritan who will cross borders, build bridges and reach out. It will take you and I believing the best in others and showing them the best of ourselves. It will take people beaten and left for dead to show forgiveness and acceptance for whoever will come along and show them kindness.
The parable of the Good Samaritan tells us that this cycle of violence, labels, segregation, and judgment, can be broken.
Over to you… How does this parable disrupt your current way of thinking? Leave us your comments below.
Go to Part 8 – Your Enemy »
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