‘A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.’ (v 31) “I have always thought that our text for today is one of the saddest verses in the whole of Scripture. The priest in Jesus’ story passed by in stolid indifference and watched the man who had been assaulted by robbers go through agony. He did not seem to care.

That same attitude – the attitude of not caring – seems to be increasingly common in our contemporary society. Recently, while watching television, I heard a journalist comment, ‘We have many crises in our world but one of the greatest is the crisis caused by the lack of care.’ So how should we Christians live out our lives in a world where there is little care for one another? We should keep on caring. To allow other people and their attitudes to determine our own conduct is unchristian.

Shakespeare, as you probably know, wrote some words that are in harmony with Scripture; ‘Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.’ Brotherly kindness – true brotherly kindness, that is – does not change no matter what changes there are in others. It was said of John the Baptist that he was a ‘voice …. calling in the desert’ (Matt. 3:3). Someone has remarked that the difference between a voice and an echo is that a voice is proactive and an echo is reactive. Are we echoes or are we voices?

Years ago a missionary doctor from the USA went to China. While attending typhus cases he himself was stuck down and ravaged by the disease. Yet when he heard that a coolie woman would die if she did not have a Caesarean operation, he bade his colleagues carry him to the operating room and operated on her as he was dying. Perhaps the coolie woman never knew about this and maybe she did not care. But he cared - and that is enough.

A prayer:

‘O God, help me to bring to all my relationships an attitude of care and concern that will help lighten other people’s loads. Save me from just passing by. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”