Pentecost 7, Proper 10, Year C

Amos 7:7-17 or Deuteronomy 30:9-14     
Psalm 82 or 25:1-10
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

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A Samaritan Takes a Chance

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, "Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend."   -- Luke 10:34-35

Not only was the Samaritan good to the unlucky traveler whose allegiance was so different from his own, he was willing to negotiate with people who, he knew in advance, might not be disposed to trust him.  He had to make the first move, though: he needed their cooperation to complete his good deed. 

So how did he go about building trust?  By trusting them first. He gave the innkeeper two perfectly good coins from his own purse and promised more.  A risky business, we might say.

Doing nothing would have involved no risk at all.  But doing nothing also would have ensured that the injured man would die by the side of the road.  The Samaritan took a risk, but it was a calculated one: he knew he would return to the innkeeper again, knew that the innkeeper needed to maintain a reputation for honesty if he wanted to remain in business.  True, there were reasons why the Samaritan's gamble might not work, but there were also reasons why it might. So he elected to take the chance.

The micro-loans Episcopal Relief and Development offers in poor communities are like that.  Anybody who contemplates lending money must always factor in the possibility that he may not be repaid.  Never lend money you can't afford to lose, the saying goes, and that's sound advice. 

But when the lending takes place in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else's business, where people need to trust each other for the future, where one neighbor's repaid funds go out again right away as a new loan to another neighbor, where reputation for honesty is a precious thing, easily lost and not easily regained, the odds improve.  The repayment rate for these loans -- to some of the world's poorest people -- is an impressive 97-99%.

What happened to the wounded man after the Good Samaritan went on his way?  We don't know what happened to either one of them -- we never hear of them again and, anyway, it was just a story.  But we do know what happened to us because we heard it: we got a new and much wider definition of the word "neighbor."

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