The Good Samaritan

The parable of the good Samaritan was one of the first Bible stories I ever learned. For centuries, most children raised in Christian homes could probably say the same. At the age of 4 or 5, a child has suffered the scratches and cuts of childhood and can grasp the concept of helping someone else who has been hurt.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood the political and cultural differences between Jews and Samaritans and appreciated the risk the Samaritan took in helping the wounded traveler. Not only could the Samaritan have been attacked by the same group of bandits, he could well have been accused of inflicting the original injury.
The message of the need for kindness to those less fortunate transcends time and place, religion and race. A guest minister at The Church of the Good Shepherd last year paraphrased the story, giving the setting as the present in Virginia; he turned the victim into a white Methodist man, the rescuer a black Baptist woman. The theme remains the same: Someone at some personal risk or inconvenience helps another person in need, for no other reason than that help was required.

The minister went on to talk about times that he could have emulated the good Samaritan but had failed to. I was familiar with his self-reproach, having subjected myself occasionally to the same kind of internal dialogue of contrition after recognizing that I had been given an opportunity to help in some way and had failed to do so. While fortunately I have never encountered a mugging victim, I often meet the casualties of life on my daily journey, as we all do. How often have I failed to offer encouragement to someone cast down by an unforeseen turn of events or to speak up for someone who was being victimized by the office rumor mill? It was helpful to hear someone else verbalize the same soul-searching questions I sometimes ask myself.

The wonderful Erma Bombeck once wrote about the time she was delayed for another of the countless air flights that made up her life at the height of her fame. The lady next to her began to talk to Erma, who, wanting time to herself and tired of living in the public eye, responded curtly. Her seatmate continued to talk, oblivious to the dismissive replies, and Erma learned the lady was escorting her husband’s body after his recent death to his hometown for burial. Overwhelmed with remorse for her coldness in the face of such bereavement, she wrote, “I wonder if I will ever forgive myself.”

I too wonder now and then if I will ever forgive myself for my failure to recognize and respond to the needs of others. I have decided that the compassion of the good Samaritan, while always outwardly directed, sometimes needs to be focused inwardly as well.