He was lying on his back on the side of the gritty dirt road. Face bruised, clothes caked with dried mud and blood, strength stolen. He was robbed of everything— his money, his health, and his dignity. Fleshly pain stabbed him, but it was nothing compared to the wound to his pride. It was a busy road, but he refused to ask for help, and no one deigned to offer it to him. Even though he refused to ask for assistance, his heart yearned for someone to look upon him and have compassion.
This is the man that the Good Samaritan helped in Jesus’ famous parable. (Luke 10:25-37) I’ve never looked at the story from the victim’s perspective before. Every sermon I’ve heard focuses on how hypocritical the religious leaders were and how the Samaritan was the unexpected savior. But this past week, serving with Samaritan’s Purse, I’ve seen it differently.
I’ve always seen service in numbers. How many people can you serve, how quickly and if can you get the job done? How can you best use your precious time so that you feel the fulfillment that mission work promises? I wonder how the people we serve feel when we look at them as just another project, a task we can just check off our list. But people deserve more respect than that. People have dignity and intelligence and it takes a lot of bravery to ask for help.
Yesterday we helped a woman clean out her house. It was a full demolition- we were supposed to take out all the walls, insulation, and flooring- but first we were supposed to remove all of her ruined items. I picked my way to the back of the house where a closet resided, black with mold, and peppered with grey insulation. I started to pull out the soiled clothing, shoving it into garbage bags. My hands lingered on a graduation gown. I just graduated this May. I pictured the memory of the woman’s eldest child walking across the stage, wearing that gown. Marv, our team leader, said everything was trash. So I pushed it into the bag with everything else. As I dragged the bag through the house, I noticed the woman watching all her memories being tossed on the side of the road in the same bags that one would use for pizza boxes and candy wrappers. Who was I to infiltrate her life and strip her dignity even further by mistreating her possessions? Compassion isn’t just helping a person, it’s restoring the honor they once lived with.
The Samaritan was good because he removed the man from the ridicule of passers by. He was good because he used oil and wine to bandage his wounds instead of water. He was good because he sat with the man in the inn, taking care of him for the day instead of just dumping him. The Samaritan was good because he saw the individual as a person and not a project. Love is inconvenient. It lavishes. It wastes time. The Samaritan was praised not because he saved the robbed man, but because he restored the stolen dignity.
After dropping the trash bag of clothing on the side of the road, I picked my way back to the closet to eradicate more items. I stared at the mold and insulation that had fallen like dirty snow. Here I was, dressed in the bright orange Samaritan’s Purse t-shirt, forgetting how the Good Samaritan himself had treated his patient. How Jesus treats us. Making up my mind, I marched back out to the road to paw through the trash for the graduation gown. It took untying several trash bags to find the right one, but I was satisfied only when I pulled that silky blue gown out of the debris. The only sign of mistreatment was a little dust on the collar. I returned it to the meager pile of things the homeowner was looking through.
I’m going to dedicate the rest of this blog to naming a few prayer requests.
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Please pray for the extensive ministries of Samaritan’s Purse, especially the Hurricane Relief teams who are working in Louisiana and Alabama.
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Pray for my squad mates- that they would know the Lord more fully through this experience and that our first outreach mission would be fruitful.
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Pray for the people we serve- that they would see the glory of God through this tragedy, and that they would know His goodness even in a bad situation.
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Pray for all those who have suffered under hurricane Ida, and are left without means to support themselves and their families.
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Pray that no one on our squad gets Covid-19! We are getting tested as soon as we return to Gainesville, and if anyone is infected we will have to rearrange our launch plans on November 5th for Romania.
