Do You Love Your Neighbor?

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

―Aesop

In 1973, a couple of researchers conducted an experiment at Princeton Theological Seminary. A group of students was selected, and each one was told that they were to go across campus to deliver a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan. As part of the research, a third of the students were told that they were very late and needed to hurry.

Along the route, the researchers had hired an actor to play the role of a victim, doubled over coughing. Ninety percent of the "late" students in Princeton Theology Seminary—though they were concentrating on the story of the Good Samaritan—ignored the needs of the suffering person in their path as they hurried across campus. On several occasions, the seminary student literally stepped over the victim.

It’s easy to attribute all sorts of motives to the “religious folks” who passed by the needy man in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Perhaps they were so preoccupied they failed to truly notice him. Maybe they were afraid. It could be that—like the students in the Princeton study—they were in a hurry and couldn’t be inconvenienced. How often do you suppose it is that we walk down paths in this life stepping over a neighbor in need? It may be that we don’t stop because we’re preoccupied, scared, or in a hurry. There’s no shortage of excuses—some of them may indeed be valid—but the heart of our Lord is revealed in this: Love your neighbor as yourself. —DH