Compassion Knows No Bounds

"Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." [Luke 10:36-37, NRSV]

Kathleen Norris, in her delightful book "Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith," shares the following story while trying to come up with a definition for the word "neighbor"....

"I recently read in a friend's sermon a story of a Croatian of Serbian descent, a Christian who was in charge of managing refugee resettlement for a part of Croatia. Working on plans to rebuild a Muslim village that had been totally destroyed in the war, the man found, to his surprise, that no mosque had been included. When he inquired about it, the mayor told him he had assumed that Christian organizations would not be willing to help fund the rebuilding of a mosque. The relief worker replied that it was because they were followers of Jesus Christ that they would help rebuild it. 'Jesus told a story about a good Samaritan,' he said, 'who helped his neighbor without asking him about his theology.'"

When reading the full story of the Good Samaritan, one can't help but notice that the easy way to go through life is to "pass by on the other side." Compassion is risky work. It calls us to move out of our comfort zones. Samaritans were despised by the Jews of Jesus day because they were considered to be "half-breeds" whose bloodlines had been corrupted by their Jewish ancestor's marrying Gentiles. They were also largely viewed by the religious establishment as heretics. Since the true worship of God had been compromised by the Gentile side of their ancestry.

In our day and age it often feels like many Christians see their LGBT brothers and sisters as Samaritans. They see our faith as suspect at best and spiritually bankrupt at worst. I have often been told [and I'm sure you've heard it many times as well] that one cannot be gay and Christian at the same time. Perhaps we can begin to change the minds of those who see us as "half-breeds" to the faith by following the example of the Samaritan in the parable. If we can be known as people of extraordinary compassion, there is no way our nay-sayers can continue to convince the general public that we are godless heathens.