Serving Others with Compassion and Grace

The Samaritan is not the hero of the parable because he had compassion. The priest and the Levite may well have had compassion too — the text does not say they felt nothing, only that they passed by on the other side. The Samaritan is the hero because his compassion cost him his afternoon, his oil, his wine, his donkey, two days’ wages and an open-ended promise to the innkeeper.

Compassion with a budget

Notice how specific Luke is about the money. Two denarii, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. This is not a feeling. It is a line of credit extended to a stranger by a man who has already decided he will be back this way.

We tend to talk about serving others as though the hard part were the emotion. It is not. The hard part is that service has a price and a schedule, and both of them belong to somebody else.

What this looks like at Chapel TNC

1. The Wednesday meal. Forty covers, every week, since 2011. Nobody is asked what they believe at the door.
2. The care team. Twelve people who sit with families in hospitals and funeral homes. They do not preach; they bring coffee and stay.
3. The repair fund. A boiler, a car, a deposit. Paid straight to the supplier, no forms, decided by two people in under a day.

Grace is compassion that has already worked out who is paying.

None of these are impressive. All of them are boring to run and hard to stop. That is roughly the shape of the thing Jesus is describing.

An invitation

The care team meets in the west room after the second service. If you have ever sat in a hospital corridor at three in the morning, you already have the qualification.