Sometimes we forget that The Good Samaritan is not necessarily a kind story. There's a sense that Jesus is not happy, that the lawyer is doing what lawyers do and annoying Jesus with yet one more question after the facts have been fairly told. I think if you asked folk for Jesus's most famous story or teaching, it may honestly be this one: more than the Parable of the Sower, more than the Beautitudes.

The story of course is odd because the Samaritan is the hero, and the Jews in the story went on their merry way without helping the man in need. The Samaritan is not the victim here. The victim is a normal, regular Jew who because he is in the wrong place at the wrong time has been badly beaten. His countrymen contort themselvcs to find ways to not see him as their neighbor: they don't owe him anything, and he will defile or endanger them.

And so they are trying to say that the neighbor, once revealed, is not their neighbor. He could be their neighbor (hard to tell with how beaten he is), but no, he is probably already dead, perhaps the thieves are about, perhaps he deserved it...and so the Jewish clergy pass by.

And I think Jesus is making another point about us all that needs to be considered, that he will always be bringing us neighbors that make us uncomfortable, that are inconvenient, that can be difficult to defend. And each time, we must reach into the box and say this is my neighbor, and I must stand beside him and rescue him. And a small irony of the Good Samaritan story is not just the Samaritan was the better man, but that the man who was rescued would normally not like the Samaritan, or be above him in social class. And yet the Samaritan still decided to say "Today, this is my neighbor."

We are in a time where the love of many will grow cold. No, not just because of politics: we spend more and more time alone, in our own comfortable circles. It becomes harder to love your neighbor when your life is structured to shut him out. Yet I hope we can still say, I see my neighbor today: he is alive, and he needs my help.