What kind of a test-taker are you?

As I look back on my own academic career, I am forced to confess to confess the cold, hard truth: tests were a struggle for me. When it came time to put away the textbooks, pull out the #2 pencils, and wait for the signal to begin, I tightened up and often let anxiety take over. 

That was true even if I had studied and knew the material forwards and backwards. It was that pressurized test-taking environment that froze up the channels running between my brain and my fingertips and blockaded the flow of knowledge. 

Well, my fellow Christ followers, guess what? Here we are. It is test-taking time once again.

And just like in the days of the three R’s, I can feel that old familiar tightening of the stomach muscles, the dilation of the pores, and the knitting of the eyebrows beginning to happen. 

Except this time, the stakes are much, much higher than your cumulative G.P.A.

This time the test is the NEIGHBOR test.

If you are paying any attention at all to current affairs here in the good ol’ USA, you know that this country has just elected a new president. It is a president who has promised to make life miserable for anyone who does not toe the line with his repressive, regressive agenda.

Great pain and suffering are on the horizon… especially for undocumented aliens, LGBTQ+ people, his political opponents, the environment, and anyone else who fails to kiss the ring of this dictator-in-the-making. The future of that fragile experiment known as American democracy is in grave danger. Sad to say, these are not just the forecasts of a political partisan. 

And yet, here is the thing: this is not a future that was forced upon us. This is a future that WE VOLUNTARILY CHOSE! You yourself may not have chosen it, but more than half your neighbors did. 

So that is the test. How do we simultaneously keep our eyes wide open to the injury and injustice that are now rolling down the pike toward us like an out-of-control 18-wheeler, while also obeying Jesus’ very clear command to, “… love your neighbor as yourself”?

First, we read and re-read the parable of the Good Samaritan. It can be found at Luke 10:25-37. This story was Jesus’ answer to the crafty lawyer who – when hearing the “love your neighbor” command – asked, “Well, exactly who is my neighbor?”

The story of the Samaritan who took care of the wounded Jew by the side of the Jericho Road is not just the story of one person being kind to another. It is the story of a member of a hated, reviled, despised religious minority… a minority that had been attacked and unjustly treated by the Jews for hundreds of years… stopping to take pity on a man from the persecutor class. The wounded man had also – as Jesus pointed out – been ignored by two different members of his own tribe. 

When the suddenly subdued lawyer admitted that it was in fact the SAMARITAN (of all people!) who acted as the neighbor of the wounded Jew, Jesus gave him the instruction he is giving all of us today: “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37, NRSVU). 

Wendy DeBoer, a state senator from Nebraska’s 10^th District, recently cited the story of the Good Samaritan in her response to the recent election: “We look at individuals for who they are, what they need, just as the Good Samaritan didn’t see the injured man as Jewish first, but as an individual in need. I think the parable tells us to be in relationship with an individual, not discard a whole group of people.” 

The test we will face during the coming months and years will be exceedingly difficult. We will wail and mourn and gnash our teeth as we see cruelty and injustice unfold, “from sea to shining sea.” As advocates of justice, we will feel compelled to speak out and come to the aid of our marginalized neighbors. 

And yet, Jesus stands calmly before us, telling us the story of the Good Samaritan and reminding us to “go and do likewise” to each and every one of our neighbors…

… no matter who they voted for.    

Abundant blessings;