A Thought For The Week Of November 10

“A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.” (Luke 10:31) Maybe it's an occupational hazard, but when I read the parable of the Good Samaritan my focus tends to go to neither the Good Samaritan nor to the beaten man in the ditch. I think about the priest who passed by and did nothing to help. I think of how easy it is to get consumed by religious and vocational duty and to forget that being a disciple of Jesus  means to do the will of God and the work of Christ - and that these things aren't always the same as what we perceive our "religious duty) to be, whether we're clergy or lay people. But it is so tempting to set aside the will of God and the work of Christ and to busy ourselves with "duty, because our “duties” seem so immediate and so important. And so I feel some empathy for the priest in the parable - torn between doing the will of God and doing his religious duty. I know how easy it is to be tempted. I once faced an almost identical situation, in Newfoundland almost 20 years ago. I was on my way to church to do a morning service and I came across a man lying unconscious in the road. Should I stop to try to help? There were a couple of others who had stopped, and I had a service to conduct - a religious and vocational duty to perform; church work to do! The dilemma was real. In the end I overcame the temptation and I stopped and I stayed until the ambulance came, offering as much comfort as I could under the circumstances, and I was able to find a nearby phone to call ahead and say that I wouldn’t make it to church for the service. Strangely, the church survived. I’m not glorifying myself. The temptation to just drive by and let someone else handle the situation was very powerful and I could easily have made that choice. There are times when we believe that God is satisfied with us if we just perform our religious duties - showing up at church, serving on a committee. Those things take time. Surely that’s all God expects of us. But I’m sure that what God really wants from us is to see us demonstrating love, mercy and compassion. When doing our religious duty conflicts with showing love, mercy and compassion, the latter has to win out. Have a great week.