When Samaritans are mentioned in the Bible, it is often negative: they were religious outcasts, the people you wouldn’t invite over for dinner. Samaria was an area you tried to avoid. So, the word “good” was necessary. Knowing that, it doesn’t seem quite right to say that we – the pastor’s kids, the do-gooders, the nonprofit employees – are the Samaritan man in the story. Like the priest, we are already well positioned and even expected to care for those in need. Yet in Jesus’ parable, it was the outsider, the one pushed to the fringes, who did the right thing and, in turn, made that story one worth telling. Perhaps he understood what many miss.

It is often the people we least expect who care for us in transformational ways.