Issue 12: “The Good Samaritan”

"Poetry is a nightingale that sits in the darkness and sings"
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Our mission at the Matthew 25 Initiative is to equip and sustain Anglicans serving alongside the vulnerable. The work of justice and mercy is often difficult work. Holding beauty and naming pain and hope is what M25i does well. Walter Brueggeman writes, "A poem utters the unutterable and thinks the unthinkable." Join us in this new series, "For the Soul." Out of suffering, often comes the most powerful worship. In places of brokenness, we encounter Jesus.

Jesus keeps it simple in a world that is complex. Feed the hungry; give water to the thirsty; visit the prisoner; welcome the stranger; care for the orphan and widow. Luke’s story of the Samaritan should be named "The Story of the Inconvenienced One, Standing Against Justifications."

The Good Samaritan
by Adelbert Clark


The good Samaritan is he, my friend,
Who reaches down to lift men up,
Who heals their sorrows and their bleeding wounds
From Love's divine and brimming cup.
He does not seek to chide nor even vex
The fallen ones in bitter need
Of help, but raises them with gentle arm,
Nor seeks no favor for the deed.
He wears a smile when things are going wrong,
And though he often feels the pain,
He masters it with Christlike grace
Until the sunshine comes again.

And lo! he brings that sunshine to the home
Where only Night and Death abound,
Where evil tongues alas! are not restrained,
And wantonness and sin are found.
The good Samaritan is he, my friend,
Who imitates the Christ, for men;
Who lives up to the very best on earth,
Forgetting what the past has been;
Who looks the world unflinching in the face
And heeds the beggar's cry for bread,
And even faces Calvary's sullen storm
Where Christ's own blood, for men, was shed.

Luke 10:26-37

Question: But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" ...
Answer: "The one who had mercy on him."
Action: Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."