Courage to Live It

Luke 10:25-28 - And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

The Good Samaritan is one of the most beloved of all Jesus’ parables. A man on a journey by foot is robbed, beaten, and left for dead. Two religious people – who should have known to help - pass him by on the other side of the road. The foreign Samaritan with seemingly no reason to help a Jew, gives up his own oil, bandages, donkey, money, and – perhaps more valuable than all the rest – his time to make sure the man is cared for and on the mend. We all would like to think we are like that Samaritan – doing the right thing at all times. Yet, unfortunately, those kind people are the exception.

In Beautiful Souls, Eyal Press studies people like Paul Grueninger, a Swiss customs official, who defied his country’s laws many times to enable Jews who would otherwise wind up in Nazi concentration camps make it to safety. He was tried and convicted alone by his government for his good deeds and died in poverty, yet hundreds of lives were saved. Had we known them, we probably would have considered the other Swiss border guards who obeyed their orders and returned Jewish refugees to Nazi Germany as “good people.” We would probably have said the same about Grueninger’s supervisors and the judge who convicted him. They were “just obeying orders,” doing what they thought was right.

It takes unique courage to go against the flow of culture and peer pressure and do what is truly right. That is what makes the Good Samaritan so good. The lawyer who questioned Jesus thought he was good (“…wanting to justify himself…” Luke 10:29). Jesus admitted he knew the right answer (“You have answered correctly.” Luke 10:28), but knowing and doing are two different things. May each of us be of the courage few who do what is truly right.