Two Pence and a Promise

The Story

A lawyer asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Love God with everything you are, he answered himself, and love your neighbor as yourself. Then, trying to justify himself, he asked, “And who is my neighbour?”

Jesus told a story.

A man was walking the steep, lonely road from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Robbers attacked him, stripped him, beat him, and left him half dead.

A priest came down the road. He saw the man and crossed to the other side. A Levite came next. He looked at him and also passed by on the other side.

Then a Samaritan came along, a man from a people the Jews despised. When he saw the wounded man, “he had compassion on him.” He went over, cleaned and bandaged his wounds with oil and wine, put him on his own donkey, and took him to an inn, where he cared for him through the night.

The next morning, he gave the innkeeper two silver coins. “Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.”

Jesus asked the lawyer, which of the three was a neighbor? The lawyer said, “He that shewed mercy on him.” Jesus said, “Go, and do thou likewise.”

Reflection