As we pass our nation’s fiftieth anniversary, this period presents us Christians with an opportune time to stand together with our fellow-citizens and serve them with the love of Christ in the spirit of Jubilee. (Leviticus 25; Deuteronomy 15; Luke 4:18-19)

My heart’s desire for Christians in Singapore is that we allow the Word of God and the Spirit of God to lead us from “loving one another” to “loving the person in need”. Or, to put it differently, to expand our role from “building up the body of Christ” to “nurturing our neighbours in society”.

For this purpose, I would like to take a fresh look at the well-known Parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke 10:25-37

From this wonderful story, I want to encourage us not just to take the Samaritan as a good example, but to let Jesus heal the way we see and serve others.

Seeing with the heart

It is natural, of course, to firstly look at the Good Samaritan’s actions.

So many things sparkle about his response: His risk-taking on a dangerous road prone to armed robbery, his crossing of boundaries drawn by ethnic hatred and rivalry between Jews and Samaritans, and his generous giving of himself and all he had.

Jesus has him treating the injured man with oil and wine – probably easing the pain with olive oil, and using the alcohol in the wine as an antiseptic.

Then the Samaritan set the victim on his own donkey and brought him to shelter at an inn, caring for him as long as he could. Furthermore, he quickly mobilised the innkeeper to look after the victim until he was back on his feet, giving two denarii for his care. In the currency and lodging costs of the time, that was a significant sum – it would probably cover a reasonable period of stay.

In short, when the Samaritan saw a man in need, he did not do the minimum, but all that he could.

Secondly, consider Jesus’ question back to the lawyer: “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” Luke 10:36 Jesus wants us to see our responsibility from the injured man ‘s viewpoint.

Get into the drama: The victim is half-dead, unable to move. He is fearful and isolated, wondering if he is going to die. Who then will be the neighbour who helps him?

The first man to appear on the road is a priest. The audience’s hopes rise, only to be dashed because “when he saw him he passed by on the other side”. Luke 10:31

Then a Levite, a professional religious worker like those serving in church, comes by – surely he will help? But he too passes by on the other side. Luke 10:32

The surprise

Now comes the surprise – the hated Samaritan who helps the injured man. He is the true neighbour of the parable who meets the victim’s desperate need. God’s concept of being a neighbour crosses ethnic and geographic lines.

Thirdly, look at the Samaritan’s heart. Why did the Samaritan respond when the priest and Levite did not?

The difference is the heart with which we see. As William Blake said: “We do not see with the eye but through the eye.”

In this profound observation, we realise that as we view the same objective landscape, what we see depends on how we are formed within – that combination of our beliefs, values and world views, that is, the “inchscape” of our hearts.

In other words, we gather and focus light with our eyes. Though what we actually see and act on depends on the landscape and contours of our entire heart.

All three men saw the victim through their physical eyes, but what accounted for the difference in their actions was the state of their hearts.

The priest and Levite, the religious characters in the story, saw with a heart of self-love. They indeed saw the injured man, but with their hearts they also possibly saw helping him as:

• a source of ritual condemnation; if he was dead, they would be ritually unclean
• an unwelcome intrusion to their plan and schedule
• a potential danger to themselves (perhaps a ploy or an ambush).

You need a heart of compassion to see the need of others in a way that moves you to meet that need. In contrast to the religious characters, the Samaritan “had compassion”. Luke 10:33

ln other words, he so identified with the situation of the needy man that it impelled him to come to his aid. He saw the need because his heart was a heart of love. He put himself in that man’s situation. That man was in great need of mercy and help from a neighbour.

So you and I need a heart of compassion to see the needs of others in a way that makes us respond to that need. The inchscape of our heart is self-centred because of our fallenness, and our self-centred outlook is encouraged or justified by the world around us.

lnstead of accepting this idea that we must take care of ourselves first, we need to cultivate and display the compassion for others that God wants us to have.

What has the power to change the inchscape of our hearts? It is the power of the cross. It is in giving that we find our true humanness, for we are created in the image of a self-giving God!

The challenge

Let me address some features of today’s world and the unique opportunity we have to shine with the love of Jesus.

We live in a deeply polarised world. People are often nationalistic, but deeply divided within their own countries – the mood of our day is “each man for himself, each country to itself”. We see something of this in the Ebola outbreak. and an editorial in Malaysia’s New Straits Times captures the dilemma: 

Containing the virus: Can we afford to send doctors to Africa to fight the deadly Ebola outbreak?

It is the doctors that go in (to those severely affected places with under-equipped healthcare systems) that could stop the virus from getting out into the world. There must be heroes who leave the comforts of the safe house and step outside to either save someone or close the gate that is stuck.

Such altruism is what makes humans great – but it is also what gets them killed. Can we afford to write off those doctors who may never return or do we have what it takes to ensure we can contain the virus if it comes home with them? 

Our calling as Christians is not to be “heroes” – simply neighbours who care for fellow human beings who are in need.

As those who have come to the cross of Christ, we find that God has poured His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Jesus is healing the hearts with which we see, of fear, self-love and apathy.

In a world of vast human needs, Jesus enables different people to meet different needs.

Jesus’ original listeners – and we – learn from this parable that our God is not a tribal God, but a loving God of grace who reaches out towards all people.

Let Him help you take a practical step forward. Perhaps we could see those needs firsthand by volunteering with such a ministry in the Diocese of Singapore, like St Andrew’s Cathedral’s Batam Medical Mission, Singapore Anglican Community Services, St Andrew’s Mission Hospital or the ACROSS humanitarian teams.

Like the injured man on the road, the needy in this world are wondering: Who will be a neighbour to us?

The answer must be Christians who love their God and love their neighbours as themselves.

May it be so in Singapore, for the honour of Jesus Christ our Saviour and King.

This article was first published in From the Pulpit: What Pastors Want Christians to Understand , a collection of sermons with key messages that are important for Christians today, hand-picked by pastors across multiple denominations in Singapore. Republished with the permission of Armour Publishing.