by Jonathan Reckford
Perhaps there's no biblical story more frequently told than that of the Good Samaritan. Many of us learned it as kids, and years later many of us have found ourselves retelling it to our own children and grandchildren. It's quickly and simply surmised, I suppose, as "neighbor helping neighbor."
As the story goes, a traveling man was robbed, beaten and left for dead. Two people passed the man on the side of the road, going out of their way to avoid him. The third man, a Samaritan, stopped and showed compassion in a sacrificial and costly way, tending to the victim's wounds and providing him shelter. "Who was the man's neighbor?" Jesus asks in the story. "The one who showed mercy," comes the reply.
It occurs to me that--whether our motivation is to be obedient to Christ's teaching and example or because of another faith or reason for involvement with Habitat for Humanity--each of us, through our engagement with Habitat, practices compassion similar to the Good Samaritan's. The Samaritan stopped when he encountered someone in need. Like the previous two passersby, he went out of his way. Only he didn't go out of his way to avoid his neighbor. He went out of his way to help him.
We all come to this mission for different reasons, but regardless of the ways in which we participate in Habitat's housing solutions, we go out of our way to help our neighbor. Like the Samaritan, we "stop" for our neighbor in need. When we pick up a hammer or a trowel to build a decent home, we "stop." We "stop" when we write a check to support Habitat's work, speak on behalf of urgent housing issues or write our political representatives to advocate for sound housing policy. When we serve lunches on a Habitat build site or sit on an affiliate committee, we "stop." You're "stopping" even as you read this edition of Habitat World. As partners in this life-changing, hope-building mission, all of us "stop" along the road, as it were, for those in dire need of a better place to live.
Sadly, with so many families right now enduring enormous hardships in deplorable conditions, that road is long in front of us still. But we're making an impact together. We're tending the wounds that poverty housing inflicts upon our neighbors. We're helping them renew the feeling of dignity substandard housing steals away. Like the Samaritan, we're committed to compassion, justice and mercy. In whatever way we engage in Habitat for Humanity's mission, we're stopping for our neighbors along the way--and lives are being transformed in the process--starting with mine, and perhaps with yours as well.
