Homeless Killing --- Watch this news clip. This news story from CNN paints a vivid picture of what our society has become.
Having lived for years as a homeless man, it doesn’t shock me. Oh it disturbs me deeply but no it has no shocking effect. I have been that person that people move away from. I was the one that nobody wants to be bothered with. The person that they might catch something from or they wish just wasn’t there around them. After all, they are productive members of society, working to improve their life. I should have been doing the same, not allowing myself to be on the street. Something must have been wrong with me.
This man was left to die as people on the street didn't seem to care. Many saw him in need of help; yet nobody bothered. As it has often been said, “it happens all the time.” Now there may be something wrong with those who are
homeless,
but does that give reason to remove them from being counted as human. If it does then something is very wrong with the average productive member of everyday society. Something is certainly wrong in the way we’ve let this occurrence become common place among us.
Jesus was challenged by a person skilled in the law. He, the challenger, thought he could justify himself with what seemed a trick question. Today’s society like this challenger of Jesus tries to justify these acts of indifference with words that remove them from responsibility. They say; “it’s O.K, everybody does it, or it happens all the time.” Like all responsibility, when not faced there is a price to pay; consequences for our actions or inaction. The man asked Jesus the requirements for salvation. He knew he was to love God and love his neighbor, but his trick question was in asking just who his neighbor was. Thinking to himself that Jesus was going to make distinctions or set limits on who could be included as a neighbor. Our society is showing itself to be doing the same exact thing. We have gone backward to repeat what history should have already pointed out as a gross error. Our neighbors are not limited to the narrow few that we surround ourselves with in polite settings. We have no basis for making distinctions to include or exclude members of our society. The world being our home makes the people in it… our neighbors. This would include the homeless, the man in the news being one of them. The parable Jesus told about the
“Good Samaritan”
has many similarities to this news video from. Just as there were consequences behind the story, there are consequences today in our lack of action.
Luke 10:36-37 (NIV) "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
If we are to obtain salvation, our place in eternal life; then society, and all of us as members of it; must learn to follow the directions of Christ… “Go and Do Likewise.”
With the Blessing of God,
Matt.
