Today's pick: The Good Samaritan (1886) - Ferdinand Hodler. #art #Hodler #GoodSamaritan

https://www.artbible.info/art/large/53.html

The Niagara Warehouse of Hope.
#canada #goodsamaritan #hope

https://www.greaterfool.ca/2025/07/27/sheets-to-slings/

🙌 Feeling "too tired, bro" to make a difference? This sermon will light a fire in your soul! 🔥 Discover how to ditch excuses, love your neighbor, and share God's grace through the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Watch now and be inspired to act with faith! ➡️

https://zurl.co/x8n7d

#FaithInAction #LoveYourNeighbor #GoodSamaritan #ChristianMotivation #NoMoreExcuses #GodsLove #ServeOthers #SpiritualInspiration #JesusSaves #LiveForChrist

Where Is Mercy? [Sermon]

https://youtube.com/live/UkF6vwGPfC4?feature=share

The finale of Seinfeld dealt with a Good Samaritan law. A man is carjacked. Jerry and his friends make fat jokes about the man, while Kramer records this on his camcorder.

(This is 1998, and the first commercial phone with a color camera was in 1999.)

They are arrested and charged with violated a Good Samaritan law that requires people to be good samaritans. They are found guilty of criminal indifference and sentenced to a year in prison.

In reality, Good Samaritan laws are designed to protect individuals who voluntarily offer assistance to those in need during emergencies, shielding them from legal liability for unintentional harm caused while providing aid.

Additionally, some professions have a duty to help, more often though the ethics of the profession than through law.

Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

The Good Samaritan.

It’s a story that has become so much a part of our culture that “good samaritan” now means anyone who stops to help. This story is about so much more than stopping to help.

The first thing to recognize is who a Samaritan is: Someone from a land to the north of Judea.

When the descendants of Jacob moved to the land, they were one people. Eventually they split into two nations: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Those are the Israel and Judah in our reading from Amos.

The northern kingdom of Israel eventually fell to attacks from the Assyrians, and later the southern kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon.

When the Assyrians invaded Israel, they kept their gods but also adopted the God and religious practices of the land they had conquered. So they practiced a similar religion to that of Judea. The northern kingdom became Samaria.

When the people of Judah returned from exile, they did not regard the Samaritans as being the same people as them, even though they worshiped the same God and had similar religious practices. They were foreigners. Invaders. At best, they were thought of as “less than” real Jews. At worst, they were the enemy.

So in this story, an expert in the law and Jesus are talking about loving one’s neighbor as one’s self. And the expert asks Jesus “And who is my neighbor?”

This question implies that some people count as neighbors and some do not.

So Jesus tells the story of a man attacked by robbers who beat him, take everything, and leave him half dead.

A priest sees this man, clearly in trouble, and passes by on the other side.

Where is mercy?

A Levite also sees the man and passes by on the other side.

Where is mercy?

And then a Samaritan, considered by people of Judea to be less-than, comes upon this man. Our text says he was moved with compassion. There are translations that say his guts were wrenched.

The Samaritan used his own cloth to bandage the man, his own oil and wine to treat the wounds, -put the man on his own animal and took him to an inn, and paid two days wages for lodging, promising to repay any more the innkeeper spent.

There is mercy.

There are some who suggest that it was ritual purity that kept the priest and Levite from tending to the man: If the man was dead, they could become ritually unclean, according to Leviticus 21.

They were afraid of losing their purity. The Samaritan was afraid for the life of the man who was beaten. This is more than just stopping to help someone with a flat.

We are in a time of upheaval in our nation.

Despite the pledge to deport the worst of the worst, vicious criminals and mentally ill people, we have stories about Immigration and Customs Enforcement taking action against people who have earned the Purple Heart in our military, young people who grew up here and graduated at the top of their classes, mothers and fathers.

Where is mercy?

We see that the government has canceled protected status of people fleeing government oppression.

Where is mercy?

We see people deported to countries where they do not know the culture, like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in Central America, or South Sudan in Africa.

Where is mercy?

During the floods in Texas, Ciudad Acuña’s Civil Protection and Fire Department (Dirección de Protección Civil y Bomberos de Acuña) announced on Facebook that its water rescue team, along with firefighters and members of Fundación 911, departed to assist with flood search efforts in Kerrville, Texas.

That’s where there is mercy.

Neighbors are merciful to neighbors in need. Neighbors look past race, gender, religion, and class to recognize that we are all human; we all deserve mercy and compassion.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to care for our neighbors, no matter who we are.

My challenge to us this week is to notice whether we are finding excuses to exclude people from being our neighbors.

Who is a neighbor?

Someone who shows mercy.

Amen.

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.

#GoodSamaritan #mercy

A guy falls into a hole, you see...

#WestWing #lectionary #church #GoodSamaritan