THE GOOD SAMARITAN STORY - LENT 2025 EDITION

 

A man in a red MAGA hat went walking in Central Park, far beyond the crowds into the woods and there he was mugged and left for dead.  A young Trans college student was jogging in the park and came up on the wounded man.  They stopped and called 911 and waited patiently and kindly until help arrived, even at some risk that the thugs would come around and mug them too!

This parable, like the original by Jesus - one of his most celebrated parables - takes a character widely maligned in society and makes them the protagonist.  Then to add extra impact, Jesus chose a victim in his parable who lived across a wide social distance from the protagonist - so far away as to be hostile.  In the 2025 parable, The Good Trans Kid, like the Samaritan, reaches across the social barriers, and the indignation of prejudice extended to them, to be a good neighbor.

In this Lenten season, who is the person across the chasm of social polarization that would be a stretch for you to love like a Good Samaritan?  With so much evil and hate unleashed by the current United States administration, it is probably easy to imagine folks we would rather just leave bleeding on the side of the road, and to pretend we saw nothing.  But this reduces us to them - and Jesus will have none of it!

Love your enemies, he says.  Bless those who persecute you.  It is marvelous therapy, and also good social action.  And, I have long suspected that this kind of social risk-taking for the sake of love unleashes a spiritual power that we cannot fully understand - to bend the world back in the right direction.

So many thriving churches right now are marked by profound and persistent love in action, often to those who are persecuted and marginalized by forces of hate in the world.  Loving the unloved unleashes new life in such churches.  But I challenge any of you to go the next mile - to dare to love the aggressor.  I dare you to pray for them — for Trump and for Putin and their ilk - and to persist in God's counter-cultural rhythms.

Grace and peace to all of you this Lent