forest hill 
July 13, 2025
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
“Our Favourite Parable”
The Parable of the Good Samaritan is the most well-known parable in the Bible. Even people who’ve never darkened the door of a church know what a “Good Samaritan” is – though some of the nuances in Jesus’ story have been lost. In the secular world, a “Good Samaritan” is a person who goes above and beyond, at some personal cost, to help someone who’s in trouble. We even have “Good Samaritan laws” to protect people who inadvertently cause harm when they’re trying to respond to a crisis. And that’s a good thing! I want to live in a world where people are encouraged to be helpful, and not punished for stepping into the breach.
Our secular “Good Samaritan laws” seldom remember that the original hero of Jesus’ parable was a hated enemy – one who was the subject of ridicule and suspicion. A big part of the “bite” of Jesus’ parable was his reminder that sometimes the people we hate are more gracious than the people we respect. For him, the parable wasn’t simply an encouragement to be kind; it was rather an encouragement to be willing to receive grace from someone we’d been taught to fear. Imagine receiving kindness from someone outside your own social media echo chamber … would that be welcome, or uncomfortable? Trusted, or a new cause for suspicion? It’s easy to accept assistance from people “like us;” much harder to accept that the people we despise might have anything useful to offer.
But even if we can wrap our brains around the notion that the people we hate might have gifts to offer us, how do we push this beyond “crisis care” to “general attitudes for living”? Human beings are programmed to help each other in a crisis. Look at how much we celebrate the heroes rescuing flood victims in Texas or wildfire victims in Manitoba. Crisis draws compassion out of most humans. But typically, once the crisis is over, we revert to looking after our own. The same people who will bend over backwards to pull flood victims out of the water frequently are utterly opposed to changing practices that exacerbate the climate change which causes the storms. The same people who will pull refugees out of a fiery car crash will also seek to have them deported. Most of what causes harm to humans is related to unfair social policies; the individual harms are only a tiny sub-set of the hurts of the world. What does compassion look like when the immediate crisis is past?
How do we move from compassion for an individual towards compassionate policy? How do we harness the human desire to be kind in a crisis and move that into a more generalized attitude for living in a world full of conflict, pain and fear? Knowing that lots of our leaders, like the Priest and the Levite of Jesus’ story, are likely so consumed by their own priorities that they choose not to take time for compassion, how do we stand as countercultural examples of the power of sacrificial kindness? Knowing that compassion is more frequently treated as a sign of weakness rather than an expression of strength, how do we witness to the power of kindness without getting treated like a door mat?
Jesus’ world was not populated by countless “good Samaritans” any more than ours is. But even for his audience, one or two exemplary characters like this made an inspiring impact. Is that our role, as ambassadors of kindness in a world more willing to fight than bind up wounds?
Join us on Sunday as we reflect on the world’s best loved parable, and how it might still spark us to action today.