Thread by @BethMooreLPM

One of the best things about the way the Holy Spirit still animates Scripture is how an ancient story you’ve heard since toddlerhood can pierce you again. This AM, Luke 10, the Good Samaritan. The players in the scene are left unnamed because their names change with every reader.

The players in the scene are also interchangeable. We’ll all get a chance to be each. Sometimes we’re the one robbed, beaten to a bloody pulp & left half dead, unable to help ourselves & wholly dependent on someone’s mercy. We hear foot-falls nearby. They pause then patter away.

Sometimes we’re the priest. Sometimes the Levite. Too important, too religious, in too big a hurry to stop. We, after all, are called to the many, not the one. Then again, this would make a great selfie. Tons of likes on Instagram. A good filter could really bring out the blood.

Sometimes, though, maybe, just maybe, we’re the Good Samaritan, but, if so, we’ll likely be the last to know it. Intriguing how each passer-by in the scene “saw him.” 2 passed by on the other side. One went to him. Only distinction in the text: “he saw the man & had compassion.”

Here’s the thing. I wonder if we’ve all become the one half dead on the side of the road, desperate for help, having too long traversed in a culture that has robbed us of our compassion. Beaten us until our eyes are too swollen shut to see the one. But wait. We hear footfalls.

They pause. Someone with compassion. Someone with enough to spare. And compassion becomes tonic to our woundedness because, make no mistake, callousness is always a cover for a wound. Here the Good Samaritan is Jesus Himself.

While on others thou art calling, do not pass us by.