Day 18 - The Cost of Compassion

by Grace Outlaw

Luke 10:25-37

Most of us have been a part of one of those “pay-it-forward” chains, right? You know, at Starbucks someone in the drive thru will offer to buy the drink of the person behind them as a random act of kindness. The person behind them is, in turn, so inspired by their act of generosity that they buy the coffee for the person behind them, too, thus starting a chain of good deeds and paying it forward.

Can I be honest for a second? I kinda hate ending up in one of these chains. I know, I know… they are supposed to be a fun and easy way for us to show a little bit of kindness to one another. But all I feel is pressure and anxiety. (I was prepared to pay what I knew my drink would cost… What if the person behind me got three drinks? Or a venti double shot espresso nitro with cold foam and matcha that costs $18?)

In Luke 10, Jesus tells us the parable of The Good Samaritan, and we’re all pretty familiar with the basics. A man was robbed and beaten while traveling, and left injured and alone on the side of the road. A priest passes him by, as does a Levite, but a Samaritan sees him and takes pity on him. The Samaritan bandages his wounds and brings him to an inn where he pays the innkeeper to shelter and care for him. 

We’ve heard it so many times we kind of gloss over the details. For context the man that was robbed was a Jew. During Jesus’ time, Jews and Samaritans had centuries worth of animosity and deep-seated mistrust in one another that could be traced back to the division of the Israelite kingdom after Solomon’s reign. 

The Samaritan in our story took pity on him regardless… Republican and Democrat, Atheist and Christian… (UGA fans and Georgia Tech fans)... I don’t feel like there’s an applicable social divide in modern-day America to illustrate just how extreme this distrust truly was. 

But the Samaritan didn’t just do the bare minimum either… He stopped his travel plans mid-journey. He used his own provisions of oil and wine to tend to the Jewish man’s wounds – can you imagine bandaging up a beaten, bloody, dirty stranger? The Samaritan then put the injured man on his own donkey and proceeded to walk instead to take the injured man into town. And if that weren’t enough, he then paid money out of his own pocket to ensure the injured man’s care and safety when they arrived. 

The Samaritan was massively inconvenienced by his decision to help (for all intents and purposes) his enemy! How many of us are willing to be massively inconvenienced to make a difference for a friend, much less someone we outright dislike?!

When I was in college, a fellow Georgia Tech student and I took an impromptu trip to Charleston one weekend. On our way home at the end of the weekend, we began the five hour drive back to Atlanta, only to have my car break down in Augusta. This was before smartphones (yes, I know – the perfect opportunity to make a joke about how old I am here). We had no way to look up local mechanics or tow services, no way to contact a taxi or an Uber… we sat on the side of the road staring under the hood of my car, completely dumbfounded, until a truck stopped and a man got out.

Now, as a woman, alarm bells are going off in my head all over the place. This is one of the many situations my parents warned me about when I started driving! The man introduced himself to us, and said he and his dad are both mechanics, and asked if he could take a look at my car.

My friend and I are nervous, of course, but he seems nice enough, so we step aside, and let him look at my car. After poking around for a few minutes, he says there is nothing he can do about it here, but he can call his dad to bring the tow truck, and they can take it to the shop where they work – although it won’t be open until Monday, so we would have to come back after it’s fixed to pick it back up.

Again, I know how this sounds… I was nineteen, nervous, hours from home, with no way to get the help or information I needed to solve this (very expensive) problem on my own. It was probably incredibly foolish, but I decided to trust this stranger. (Do me a favor and don’t tell my parents, okay?) The man called his dad, who came with the tow truck. My friend and I rode with them to the closed mechanic shop where they said they worked, and I handed these strangers the key to my car. 

Another friend from college had left Atlanta to drive the over two hours it took to get to us, pick us up and take us home. Later in the week, this man I had met on the side of a random highway with my broken down Pontiac Grand Am called to tell me my car was fixed and ready to be picked up.

The same friend who had picked us up offered to take me back to Augusta to get my car. When I arrived at the shop, these strangers who had helped me in my time of need said I owed them nothing. No payment. No charge. They just wanted to help someone who needed it. 

The amount of generosity I experienced that week was mind blowing. My friend had spent almost 10 hours total driving time that week at the drop of a hat to help me when I needed it. Two strangers interrupted their day, spent hours of their time, and probably hundreds of dollars to help a young woman they didn’t even know, simply because I needed help.

It might be easy to think we would do the same, but how many times have we given up the chance to help – to truly help – when someone needed it? How inconvenienced would you feel if a friend called and said, “Hey, I need your help – it will cost about five hours of your time, and I need it right now”? How would you feel if instead of a $5 Starbucks latte, it was a few hundred dollars worth of groceries for the single mom checking out behind you at the grocery store?

Let me clarify, I don’t believe there is a hard and fast rule about what constitutes a ‘real’ act of kindness – life is far too messy for that! That $5 Starbucks drink might have really helped someone when they desperately needed a dose of kindness. And it’s unrealistic to always have hours of availability, or hundreds of dollars to drop on a stranger.

So my challenge to you today is this: Pray for the opportunity to show kindness to someone who needs it today. And when you are presented with that opportunity, do what Jesus commanded in Luke 10:

“Go, and do likewise.”