Bob
I asked Bob, one of our elders, what the local-needs part would be about tonight.
He said that although usually upbeat, this time it had to address a plight in the hall.
The time for the local-needs part arrived, and Bob spoke from the podium:
“A white man was riding his bike to work
When he got bumped by a passing motorist,
Leaving the white man tangled in his bike
And bleeding beside the road. A white man
Walked by with a snort. Another white man
Walked by, this time with eyes upcast.
A black man came along, untangled
The fallen one from his bike, bandaged
The cut with a clean handkerchief,
And called his wife to bring the truck
So they could take the white man home
Along with his bent wheel. So people,
Which of the passersby treated this man
As a neighbor?”
I looked across the hall to see all the black families seated on that side of the hall,
And felt myself with all the white families on this side of the hall. Point made.
I remembered when a brother I will not name stopped accepting invitations to eat
With our black brothers. Somehow we started to follow suit. After the meeting,
The half of us rushed to the other side of the hall with apologies and hugs.
Later I got to thinking about the illustration, which echoed
Bible questions bothering, such as, why does Luke record
Variant words from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount?
Bob’s words were of course a variation of ‘The Good Samaritan’
Taught by Jesus. I remembered one of our publications
Saying how well Jesus had crafted the illustration
As he made the point regarding Jewish tradition.
So, I thought, does a variant telling
Mean that the story was allegory, not history?
Maybe, I thought.
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