But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus,
“And who is my neighbor?”
—Luke 10.29
People say you should be a good Samaritan.
You can’t.
Samaritans were despised outsiders.
Good or not,
you have too much privilege to be a Samaritan.
That’s for the queers, the immigrants,
the trans, the blacks, the homeless.
You can be good,
you can be generous to strangers,
even to your enemy.
But you are not the hero of this story.
You can’t be.
You’re the one in the ditch.
Your neighbor is the other one.
You call them rapists and they pick your fruit.
You call them shiftless and dangerous
and they build your economy.
You abhor them and they bless you.
Stop making it about you.
Confess your dependence.
Receive your neighbor’s grace.
Be humbly grateful.
Let yourselves be neighbors.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
July 8, 2019