When the Good Samaritan Saw Him, He Put Down His Phone...

Today on Yahoo's front page this article was a lead new item. The synopsis of the story, as reported by Yahoo news, is this: Bill Nye, otherwise known as "Bill Nye the Science Guy," was giving a presentation at the University of Southern California in front of hundreds of students. As he approached the podium for his presentation, he collapsed. At that moment, instead of students rushing to help, they apparently got out their phones and began tweeting and updating their Facebook statuses telling of the event. As soon as I finished reading the article, I was immediately drawn to Luke chapter 10.

Let's take a look at the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you're not familiar with it, you can read it here. In Jesus' telling of this parable, we find that a Jewish man is robbed and left for dead by the robbers, and then seen and avoided by both a priest and a Levite (they would become 'unclean' by helping the bloodied man). Finally, a Samaritan, whom the Jewish people despised, stops to help the man, and goes as far as arranging for care for the man at an inn. Martin Luther King, Jr. has a beautiful thought on this passage. He says, "The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'" And with that thought, the Samaritan lives out the call of the law: loving God, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

Which brings us back to the Bill Nye story: what were the students in the lecture hall thinking? "How cool will this tweet be?" "This is an EPIC Facebook status." "I don't want to get involved." "I would be mortified going up to help this man in front of my peers." It's impossible to tell, and I don't want to select any one students and say, "this is what they were thinking." I can't. As much as I would like to think that I would have gone to help him, the temptation of updating my Facebook status would have been present as well. I do think this is a story that Jesus might use if he were teaching among us today. When do we stop worrying about what others thing of our 'status,' both literally (like on Facebook), and figuratively, and instead say, as Dr. King says, "what will happen to him?," we begin to live the law, and, more importantly, be like Jesus to the people of this world.

As we approach Thanksgiving, let us be aware and grateful of some of the gifts God has given us to serve the world: namely, our hands and our feet.