Love is Kind!

Monday – Love is Kind
Luke 10:25-37

    One December evening near dusk when I was around ten years old or so, my family was in our car on the way to a live nativity scene, when we were the first to arrive on the scene of an accident. In the ice and snow, two cars had collided and without witnesses. It was in a time before cell-phones were common, and I remember my dad pulling over and going to each car, before coming back to tell my mom to drive and find help, that he'd stay behind. I can't remember if we ever made it to the live nativity. What I do remember is the ambulance lights, my mom's breathed prayers, the long wait, and seeing my dad help first responders until the victims were safely on their way to the hospital.
    You could say my dad was a Good Samaritan figure, and maybe that's half right. But as far as I remember, he never offered to pay hospital bills or even go visit the crash victims in the hospital the next day. In our day and age, such actions seem ridiculous, and far behind the expectations of human decency. I wonder what was considered human decency in gospel times. Maybe Jesus' point is that the priest and the Levite in this story fail at even human decency, while the kindness of the Samaritan exceeds it. He not only stops for the half-dead man on the side of the road, but sacrifices materially of his own resources for him.
    Kindness is an above and beyond sort of affair, action outside the realm of the expected, and self-sacrificing at its core. It's senseless, you might say, because it isn't gainful or for the purpose of anything other than relentlessly pursuing the good of another. Our culture teaches us to be nice - and by this, we mean polite, or humanly decent. But kindness in comparison is intentionally loving action, directed by the Holy Spirit, a thoughtfulness toward the needs of another, which goes beyond niceness. Kindness requires paying attention - a commitment to see a person, listen for what is most longed for or needed, and then act decisively. It could be cleaning up tornado damage, or something more daily and closer to home. Sometimes loving our neighbor means the one who shares our breakfast table every morning.
    Jesus' last words to the lawyer who tests him are, "Go and do likewise." Spend time today in listening prayer for how you might act in the way of the good Samaritan. Toward whom and how will you live out kindness?

Prayer: Jesus, you who were moved to pity when we were half-dead and in need of your loving kindness, we open the ears of our heart to listen for your Spirit, prompting us to do as you have done for us. Form us into the ones who will show our neighbor mercy through your power working in us. Equip us with courage for the task ahead. Amen.

-Shannon Schaefer