A biblical scholar came up to Jesus and questioned him to
see if he knew his stuff. “Preacher, what must I do to get to heaven?” Jesus
replied, “What does the Bible say? How do you interpret it?” He replied, “The
Bible tells us to love God with our whole being – with all our heart, soul,
strength and mind. It also tells us to love other people as much as we love
ourselves.” Jesus said, “You’re right. Do this, and you will surely get to
heaven.”
But the scholar, trying to find a loophole, said to Jesus, “Whom
exactly should I love?” So Jesus told him a story.
A man was traveling from Washington to Arlington. Before he
had gotten out of DC he was carjacked, pulled out of his vehicle, robbed, and
beaten. While he was laying bleeding on the sidewalk, a Baptist preacher drove
by, having just returned from the President’s Prayer Breakfast. He saw the man
but didn’t stop to help. Shortly later an Episcopal priest drove by, having
just been to a service at the National Cathedral, but he did not stop either. Then a Muslim imam drove by. He saw the man
and stopped to help. He knew he couldn’t just leave him there to die. If he
called 911 it might be too late for the man to survive. So he lifted the man
into his car and drove him to the ER. At the hospital he told them that if the
man did not have insurance, he would cover the bill. So he gave them his credit
card number.
Jesus asked the biblical scholar, “Which of these three men
loved the man who was mugged?” The scholar replied, “Clearly it was the one who
stopped to help!” “Right!” Jesus replied. “Now go and do the same.”
(image is Good Samaritan
by Elaine Schraader.
I just finished reading your book, Experiencing God Directly. Thank you so much for writing that. It has really been helpful to me. It echoed many things that have been on my mind, but you stated them more clearly than I could've done. This post about the Good Muslim also echoes a thought I had just the other day - that the Samaritans were hated not only for being ethnically mixed, but for being "heretics". They had the wrong version of the Torah, wrong place of worship, wrong answers to the questions. But Jesus valued love over having the right answers. Brilliant of you to recast this story with a Muslim as the hero! God bless you!
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