Go, do and be of real service to all in need

There’s a question asked in the Bible’s book of James — “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?’ ”

Compassion from a distance — or if it were fair season, compassion on a stick — goes down easy.

No mess, no fuss. “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” Sound familiar?

I’m a believer in the power of prayer — for myself and others. But this expansive possibility often shrinks to an escape tunnel for taking no action in a situation where a specific lack needs to be met.

Jesus tells a story of the Good Samaritan. A man is beat up by thugs and left half dead alongside the road. The ones you think might have helped him don’t. They pass by “on the other side.”

The one who does offer assistance, who sees him and feels compassion, is from a community of people ostracized and looked down upon in the culture of that day.

This person bandages the injured man’s wounds, adding wine, a disinfectant, and oil, a pain reliever, and loads him on his own animal and takes him to an inn. He pays the equivalent of two days’ wages to the innkeeper to care for him, promising to repay him on the way back if he spends more.

Jesus teaches this parable in response to the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” He brings it back around asking, “Who proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?” The answer being the “one who showed mercy.” Jesus urges, “Go and do the same.”

Go and do. Be of real service. Welcome packets arrived in the mail the other day for four kids from around the world — Ariel … Magdaline … Jhon … Joaquim. I don’t know that I’ll ever actually meet them. They live in poor villages. Mainly their fathers are subsistence farmers. A monthly sponsorship gives food and clean water and health and education opportunities. Ariel’s 15. He writes he wants to be a doctor and help people.

Maybe I can be part of that hard scrabble dream. The Samaritan effect — still at work.