The Good Samaritan

Recently I was struck by the profundity of Luke 10:25-37, the story of the "Good Samaritan."  And, as is typical with the parables of Jesus, it is much deeper than what is usually discussed.  First it is interesting to note that this is Jesus' response to the question: "what must I do to inherit eternal life."  In short, His answer is "love your neighbor," which was probably as surprising to the "expert in religious law" as it might be to a contemporary "expert."  The man replies, "but who is my neighbor?" 

In the parable, the priest and the Levite both pass up the beaten man, an obvious condemnation of the religious structures of the time, but this is not the main idea from the parable.

Rather, the Samaritan not only met the wounded man's needs (verses 33-34), but went out of his way to both physically and monetarily nurse the man back to health (34-35).  What struck me as profound though was the fact that the Samaritan came back.

Many folks are willing to serve others.  Many more, especially those in an affluent nation like ours, are willing to help financially.  But the last promise that the Samaritan makes is that he will come back.  This is relationship.  That is the toughest promise to make because relationships can get messy.

Since I am a teacher, I develop graphic organizers. . . for a living.  This one came to mind while I was studying this passage:

We can only be a "true neighbor" by incorporating compassion, action AND relationship.  Without one of these key components we fall short of the example set by the Good Samaritan.  Being moved to compassion and then wanting to serve (absent of relationship) can create a sanitary service paradigm where we end up creating cultural, racial and socio-economic barriers.  When we feel as if it is our "Christian duty" to help others (void of compassion and love) and we enter into relationship with those in need we begin to eventually resent the folks we have been called to love.  Lastly, if we have compassion and relationship with the marginalized but no action, we fail to fully meet God's call in Matthew 25 (feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned).

I do not believe that it was a coincidence that Luke follows up this story about the Good Samaritan with one about Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42).

When we can allow the Holy Spirit to transform our interaction with our neighbors to include compassion, action and relationship, only then can we become true neighbors.

Church as Antagonist to Christ

The follower of Christ, whose service means an ever-growing understanding of his teaching, and an ever-closer fulfillment of it, in progress toward perfection, cannot, just because he is a follower, of Christ, claim for himself or any other that he understands Christ's teaching fully and fulfills it. Still less can he claim this for any body of men. 

To whatever degree of understanding and perfection the follower of Christ may have attained, he always feels the insufficiency of his understanding and fulfillment of it, and is always striving toward a fuller understanding and fulfillment. And therefore, to assert of one's self or of any body of men, that one is or they are in possession of perfect understanding and fulfillment of Christ's word, is to renounce the very spirit of Christ's teaching. 

Strange as it may seem, the churches as churches have always been, and cannot but be, institutions not only alien in spirit to Christ's teaching, but even directly antagonistic to it. With good reason Voltaire calls the Church l'infâme; with good reason have all or almost all so-called sects of Christians recognized the Church as the scarlet woman foretold in the Apocalypse; with good reason is the history of the Church the history of the greatest cruelties and horrors. 

The churches as churches are not, as many people suppose, institutions which have Christian principles for their basis, even though they may have strayed a little away from the straight path. The churches as churches, as bodies which assert their own infallibility, are institutions opposed to Christianity. There is not only nothing in common between the churches as such and Christianity, except the name, but they represent two principles fundamentally opposed and antagonistic to one another. One represents pride, violence, self-assertion, stagnation, and death; the other, meekness, penitence, humility, progress, and life. 

We cannot serve these two masters; we have to choose between them. 

(From Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You)

How many men are necessary to change a crime into a virtue?

One man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great and noble action. Only gather the people together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men becomes an innocent action. But precisely how many people must there be to make it so? — that is the question. One man cannot plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But precisely how many are needed to make it permissible? Why is it that one man, ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number may?

                                                           - Adin Ballou
                                                              (American pacifist, socialist and abolitionist)

Warrior Dash Results

Team Nevernude rocked the North Bend, WA Warrior Dash. As one team member said, "We won before the race even started."

I would say only about 50% thought we were Tobias Funke from Arrested Development, the other half thought we were the actual Blue Man Crew.  One Warrior Dash official took a picture of us and posted it on Twitter with the title "Blue Man Crew."  Their loss.

The hardest part about the entire day was lubing up the blue body paint.  When you are one step above Sasquatch, it isn't much fun.

Here we are on the 2nd to last obstacle.  We decided very early on: "Leave no Blue Man behind," and finished with a time of 50 minutes.  Our goal was under an hour, so we destroyed expectations. There were about 3,000 participants on Sunday and we finished right around 1,500th.

I did a cannonball into the mud pit at the end. 

We did the wheelbarrow across the finish line in true warrior fashion.

The girls were warriors too.

Warrior Dash

I'm doing this next weekend. 3.6 miles, 12 obstacles including "Deadman's Drop," "Road Rage" where we will crawl over old cars and "Warrior Roast" which is jumping over flaming trenches of fire.



After repetitively telling my brother "No, I don't want to pay money to throw up" he offered to pay (for my birthday).

If you know my brother, it wouldn't sound odd that he wants to run it in costumes.  Here is what we settled on:



Tobias Funke - Blue Man with Nevernudes.

Should be fun.