Caring Without Knowing

                                    “Go and do likewise.”

                                 –Luke 10: 37b 

During the summer, I’m reflecting in this blog on a list of desired character traits identified by a North Carolina school district years ago. This week we focus on compassion. While many Biblical passages speak to the importance of that attribute, none is more beloved than the story of the Good Samaritan. 

Jesus shares that parable in Luke 10:25-37, telling of a man traveling between Jerusalem and Jericho who is attacked and left for dead. The first person on the scene afterwards is a Jewish priest, who doesn’t stop to help, but passes by on the other side of the road and keeps going. Next is a Levite, an assistant in the Temple, who sees the injured party, too, but also maintains his distance and schedule. Last to appear is a Samaritan, one who would have been avoided by Jews of that era. Not only does he draw near, but gives assistance. He offers first aid on the spot and then rents a room so that the man might have a place to recover, vowing to pay the innkeeper for any additional care required.

Jesus’ tale is so familiar that it has worked its way into our popular culture.  There are laws that provide protection for one who stops to help someone in need–so-called “Good Samaritan” statutes–which ensure that the one assisting in an emergency cannot be sued later should the injured person die. That legislation and the general urging we hear in various other settings to be a Good Samaritan arise from that timeless story. Jesus ends his parable by saying to his questioner “Go and do likewise.”  So what would it mean if we were to show compassion like that? 

In reflecting on that question, I was struck by the Samaritan’s lack of knowledge. I don’t mean the absence of medical knowledge which caused him to treat the injuries with wine and oil as that seemed to be the standard of care in that era. No, the Samaritan didn’t know that such help would be needed as he set out on his travels that day. Jesus said the priest passed the scene “by chance” and the same descriptor seems to apply to the Levite and the Samaritan as well. All of them were involved in an ordinary moment–literally walking down the road-yet only one acted with compassion.  

I wonder if part of Jesus’ admonition to “Go and do likewise” is that we, too, respond to situations as they present themselves to us. In our case, it might not be encountering a victim of assault, but a conversation where even though the other person says “Everything’s fine” we sense something is wrong.  Or it could arise when we walk into a room and can feel tension in the air. Or when a friend who planned to meet us for dinner does not show up. For us, too, there are everyday moments when some need appears and we must decide what to do.  Will we help or not?   

One night years ago, I was driving to my hometown of Columbus, Georgia.  I was on a college break and looking forward to a time of rest. Just a few miles from my house, one of my front tires went flat. Actually it exploded, a steel-belted radial that would become part of a massive recall in the late ‘70s. I didn’t know any of that at the time or care. My only concern was to get the car to the side of the road. With some effort, I was able to stop in the emergency lane.  I put on my flashers and after a few minutes had changed the flat. 

A couple of weeks later, I was telling my father about the experience and he got a funny look on his face. The more I shared details about the time and location of the event, the more his first suspicion proved correct. For at the same moment of my trouble, he had been heading north on the same four-lane road. He remembered seeing a car with flashers on in the south-bound emergency lane. Since it was dark he couldn’t tell more than that, but for some time afterwards, I enjoyed teasing him about how he hadn’t stopped to help his own son. Of course, had he known it was his flesh and blood, he would have turned around to help. Yet he didn’t know and in that moment chose to keep going the opposite way.

The Samaritan didn’t know the man alongside that dusty road in Jesus’ story or that a need would arise as he traveled toward Jericho. Yet still he stopped to help, modeling the kind of compassion I believe Jesus seeks in us. That doesn’t mean we will help every stranded motorist or assist every person we encounter along the way. Or even that we set out each morning with a priority of keeping our eyes open to someone who might need our help. Such responses strike me as neither practical nor sustainable.

Yet what I do hear that story affirm is that we are not to limit compassion to those whom we know or those who explicitly say “I need your help.” That we not offer our care only when we have extra time built into our schedule either. Rather, that we extend compassion in the same spirit as did one of long ago, by caring without knowing. Offering God’s love to others through our actions when and where we can, even if our being there wasn’t by chance at all.

Compassionate Lord, I have been blessed by such acts of care from you and others throughout my life. Condition my heart in such a way that I will respond as did that Samaritan when you reveal the need to me. Amen.