Monday, June 12, 2017

What's So Good about being a Samaritan?

Jesus could have made it up.

Maybe it actually happened though it doesn't really matter.

He was answering a question.

"Who is my neighbor?"

The asker is a highly degreed, respected authority on the Scriptures and he's playing a game of "One Up" with Jesus who had just agreed with him!

Some folks live to argue.

Rather than debate, Jesus tells a story.

"This guy was robbed, beaten badly, they even took his clothes, and left him to die on the side of the road."

So far there's nothing extraordinary about this as it happens most every day.

A Priest and a Rabbi happen along, both religious leaders, see the poor guy bleeding in the ditch and keep going.

Yep, nothing unusual about this either ... normal human behavior which each of us constantly practice.

Then a Samaritan comes along sees the dude, cleans him up best he can, loads him up and takes him to Emergency Med where they don't take insurance ... pays in advance and guarantees to cover things if things end up costing more.

 A Samaritan?

You know who those people are ... someone you hate with everything in you.

If you're a Trump supporter it's Hillary. If you love Bernie then it's Mike Pence. Could be ISIS, the Liberal Media, any member of Congress, Lawyers, Bankers or Cops ... whoever you hate is who the Samaritan is.

But it's the person you hate the most doing the right things after those you respect and follow didn't.

Jesus ends the story here and turns the question back on the asker in the game of One-Up-man-ship ... "Who's the neighbor?"

I'm stuck on the Samaritan because God knows things didn't turn out so good.

First off the health care system was involved so of course it costs more!

Don't for one moment believe a measly two denarii covered things!

The whole matter was likely turned over to a debt collection agency who hounded the poor Samaritan for years until things were settled.

Second, the guy probably never said "Thank you" after he woke up in the care of a Health Care system designed to perpetually keep him in treatment.

Counting his lucky stars, the poor Dude likely got the Hell out of there as fast as he could before the Billing department started holding him accountable for the mounting debt Health Care is built upon.

In actually, not much good came to the Samaritan.

I really want to believe in Karma ... you do good things then good things come to you.

And if you do bad things then watch out because we're going to cheer when you get yours.

But I don't.

The Samaritan got nothing out of the whole things other than the personal satisfaction he'd done the right thing and nobody gives a continental damn.

Except maybe Jesus who told the story when it came in handy in a game of One-Up-man-ship. 

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