Jesus tells a parable in Luke 10:25-37, which we know today as the parable of the good Samaritan. Of course this is not the title Jesus used. For Jesus' original audience there was no such thing as a good Samaritan. Anyone who was a Samaritan was the enemy. But that's the whole point. The one who does the right thing is the hated outsider rather than the religious insider. If you've never heard the story before click on the video below (please excuse the old fashioned language).
We all live with prejudice, with some we see as insiders and others we prefer to keep as outsiders. The law here is summed up in two commands - to love God and to love my neighbour. There is a sense in which the first is easier than the second because many of us see this as being less concrete, it is somehow something that goes on inside me when I read the Bible or pray. Yet we can't afford to think this way. We can't truly love God without loving others - including our enemies. To try and argue that we can is evidence that we have not really started to understand God's love for us. For the first century Jew the phrase 'good Samaritan' was an oxymoron - a contradiction in terms. Who are the 'good Samaritans' in my life? I don't mean the people who help out when I'm in a crisis. I mean the people I've never got a good or kind word for. What am I going to do about it?
