We know this story already. Surveys show that this story is one of the two most Christians call their favorite. The other is the Prodigal Son. Both come from Luke. Those of us who have read and studied Luke know that this gospel has a particular bias for the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, the foreigner, and the outsider…
A man is near death along the bloody way that connects Jerusalem and Jericho and the people we expect to stop and help ignore him. Two people actually help. The Samaritan and the Inn-keeper. Both nurse the man back to health.
In the past 100 days, several thousand people have died. They were near death but because we, like the Priest and the Levite in the story, chose not to stop and chose to ignore them. We chose to let them die. We found them near death, victims of a menace we call drugs, but we chose to let them die rather than nurture them back to health.
In the next 100 days, more will die. Thousands.
Unless we, all of us, decide to be Samaritans and Inn-keepers. We must demand a stop to the killings. We must carry our near-death sisters and brothers to safe places where they can heal. If we do not know how to do this, we must learn. We must open our hands, our hearts, our homes, our churches, our hospitals, our schools, so that we can nurture our near-death sisters and brothers back to health.
And we must do this now!
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