Devotion for the Week

… for the week of July 13, 2025

Who is the Good Samaritan?

The story of the good Samaritan is well known, even outside Christian communities. Some ministries are even named after it. However, showing love and care to others, especially strangers, can be complex. Like the lawyer who comes to Jesus in today’s gospel, many seek to learn how to live a life of integrity. Answering the call to love God with all one’s heart, mind, and soul, however, often leads to questions about what that means in the real world. This parable calls listeners to generosity in extending care beyond charitability and helps expand the definition of neighbor. There continues to be a steady increase in homelessness and poverty in our country, and loving a neighbor as a “good Samaritan” can often feel impossible. Nevertheless, we are still called to care for the most vulnerable.

Alongside care, another dynamic emerges from this encounter between Jesus and the lawyer. This is also a story about Jesus expanding the notion of who is capable and “good.” By highlighting an unlikely character who does the good thing, Jesus’ answer to the lawyer’s question, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), gives the lawyer a chance to think about the stranger as just as capable of love as he is.

Loving is not exclusive to a specific type of person; we are all capable of it.

The invitation, then, is not just to love the stranger who walks through the church doors, but to see them as just as capable of bringing love with them. Loving God with one’s entire being also means trusting that everything God has made, especially our neighbor, has the potential to be an extension of divine love. Seeing others as just as capable of being the good Samaritan as we are diminishes the societal hierarchies and judgments that keep us from sharing in the splendor of God’s love with one another. So, like the lawyer, may we be surprised by the generous care of a stranger as we seek to do the same.