Dear friends,

This Sunday, the story of the Good Samaritan will be retold. Many of us vividly remember this story from our children’s Bibles. And for many of us, this story has illumined our conscience, and it has helped us to make the choice, when opportunity arose, to assist someone in distress.

But I wonder what it would have been like to have this story told afresh, as a Judean in the first century CE? First, there’s the detail of a man on a notoriously dangerous road having been robbed and brutalized, left “half dead.” Then Jesus casts two respected religious authorities (who should have a social obligation to help this man) as characters who cross to the other side of the road, rather than assisting this man. But wait, then Jesus really pushes the plot, and it is a foreigner (without any form of obligation to help)—a Samaritan, in fact—who rescues this brutalized man out of pity, and then lavishly hands the innkeeper the equivalent sum worth two months of care and lodging. Then, Jesus then bids us to do the same <<mic drop>>.

I’m curious… who might the equivalent of this “Samaritan” be in our own communities? How might we follow Jesus’ example and cross boundaries that separate us from one another? And, what was it like to receive such grace, at some time in our lives, from a total stranger?

So let’s bring those questions and stories with us as we come together for worship, education, and fellowship this Sunday.

Blessed be the journey!

Christopher Drummond, intern