July 2025 Monthly Letter

Dear Reconcilers,

Contributing writer Mike Feazell sheds new light on an old story, explaining its relevence for us today.

   

We all remember the story in Luke 10 where Christ was asked by a teacher of the law, “And who is my neighbor?”.  

To answer the question, Jesus gave the well-known parable of the good Samaritan.

We know the story. A man walking down the road from Jerusalem was attacked by robbers who left him half dead. A priest, then a Levite, saw him, but walked on without helping him. Then a Samaritan (an ethnic group despised by the Jews), saw him, had compassion on him and helped him. 

So Jesus asked the teacher, “Which of the three was a neighbor to the unfortunate man?” When the teacher admitted that it was the man who showed him mercy, Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

Now I have known this parable since I was a small boy. And I have always assumed, as you probably have, that Jesus gave the parable to teach us that we should be like the good Samaritan and not like the priest nor the Levite. And I suppose we’d be right to think that. But more recently, I have begun to think that there is even more to the parable than that. 

The parable was given specifically to the teacher of the law to answer his question, “Who is my neighbor.” That answer is for us, too. But I think there is something extra for us, who are reading it millennia later.

When we read or hear any story, we tend to identify with one of the characters in it—usually with the hero.  But in this story, I’ve come to realize that there is another character who perfectly epitomizes each one of us—the man who was robbed and beaten and helpless.

We would all be spiritually helpless and plagued with guilt were it not that God spiritually healed us and made us whole. We had no say in it, much like the man in the parable who was helped without his consent or knowledge.                 

God’s forgiveness sets us free from guilt and legalism. It frees us from striving fruitlessly for a clean conscience. And that freedom, in turn, allows us to live with open hands and hearts, extending compassion, forgiveness, mercy and help to others.

July 4th is the anniversary of the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence. It marked the beginnings of a nation that would become a herald of freedom, a light set on a hill, a beacon to the world to which people from all nations would flow for hope, for opportunity, for education.

Now we find that beacon being dimmed. But it can never be dimmed in each of us, nor in all those around us who reflect the love of Christ every day in their own homes, communities and neighborhoods. No, that beacon of freedom still shines brightly in every act of kindness, every smile, every helping hand, and every act of compassion and forgiveness. 

Yes, we do live in darkening times. Yet God is always there. And, as Victor Hugo wrote in his novel Les Miserables, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

—J. Michael Feazell