We are at war. Everyday we face the battle of good verses evil. The battle we face is not a physical battle, though sometimes it may feel like it, but a spiritual one. There is always a chance in battle that you will get wounded, and its not always by the enemy. You can also get injured by friendly fire. Regardless, if your wounded where will you get help from.
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ (Lk 10:30-35., NIV)
Jesus tells a parable about a man that was beaten within an inch of his life, and he desperately needed help. The first man to come along after he is laying there bloody, beaten, and wounded is a "Priest", a leader in the church. He sees him and purposely walks to the other side and keeps going. Why? We have to assume many things here. Maybe he was afraid of getting attacked himself, so he scurries on, maybe he was late and couldn't afford to be held up, maybe he knew the guy and thought he deserved it, or maybe he just couldn't stand the sight of blood. Who really knows, reason doesn't matter, point is a church priest left a wounded hurting man without offering any kind of help.
So the guy continues to lay there, vision blurred and going in and out of consciousness he sees the priest leave. Oh but wait along comes another... yes, a Levite, a church person, a religious person. The man blinks and hope begins to build back up. But yet, the Levite does the same as the priest, goes to the other side and keeps going. Why this one? Again, its all assumption. We don't really know why..... but once again, the man watches him walk away.
Some time passes by and this man wounded is probably given up hope, and has crossed over to unconsciousness. Along comes a Samaritan, a cross breed of peoples, who has compassion on this man. He bandaged him, he put him on his donkey and took him to safety, and then paid an inn-keeper to watch over him. What made this one different, why did he have compassion and the others didn't. Jesus' whole point in this parable was about loving his neighbor.
Our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our schools, and even our churches are full of wounded people. Sometimes we are wounded by our own troubles, sometimes it is by the enemy, and sometimes we wound our own in our churches with what I call "friendly fire". Regardless, how long will we continue to walk by and ignore our wounded. How long are we going to walk past the ones that are searching for hope and not offer any help. How long are we going to keep doing this.
When we are wounded sometimes we expect to get help from our spiritual leaders, but yet that doesn't always happen. We often times get the help we need with our wounds from unlikely sources.
We pass people everyday that are wounded and the choice is always ours, are we going to help the wounded are not.
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