Go and Do

Today’s reading is from Luke 10, continuing our series of readings from Luke as Jesus moves toward Jerusalem, and it’s the very familiar Parable of the Good Samaritan, likely one of the most well-known of those parables of Jesus. One of the features of the parables is that we can always learn something from them, no matter how often we hear them. As comfortable as they feel, they can also poke us in the back, convicting us. The lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” is really a question of who is not my neighbor – who are the people I do not need to love? It is also a theological question, but Jesus tells the parable and through it invites the lawyer to examine himself. We, too, are invited to examine ourselves through the parable. Perhaps the Samaritan recognized himself in the brokenness of the wounded traveler. We want to be good, but we are called by this parable to do good.