Build a Wall?

What's the "takeaway" of the parable of the Good Samaritan? It's the call to compassion. This is the motivation that Jesus attributes to his character's actions. As the author of the parable, he chose his words carefully. 

The telling of the story grew out of a discussion concerning what's often called "the summation of the law": "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). The man engaged with him, one who was skilled in rabbinic law, sought to limit his obligation by asking, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus' masterstroke was to offer a story that put the focus back on the commandment, which says to love the neighbor "as yourself." Jesus wanted his inquisitor to put himself in the situation of the man who had been beaten and left half-dead. What would he want from someone who happened upon him, the actions of the priest and Levite who avoided the problem? Would it not be for a fellow human being (the inclusion of a Samaritan as hero was particularly loaded) to have mercy on him and help him? Would it not be compassion? If that's what you would want, Jesus infers, then "go and do likewise."

This is an important lesson for us, particularly now. Some self-described evangelicals are aligning themselves with politicians who promise them security and prosperity by staying on the other side of the road, the side that keeps them from having to embrace the messy process of compassion. But what if it was they who had to flee the devastation of war? What if was they who left a homeland of intractable economic woes, political unrest, and vicious gang violence? What if it was they who were seeking to create a safer, prosperous future for themselves and their families? It's challenging to see ourselves in the other, but isn't that what Jesus is asking of us -- to do for them what we would have done for us? (cf., Luke 6:31)

Do I sound like a "liberal"? Do I sound like a woosy? I hope I sound like Jesus. 

The issue of illegal immigration (to name just one of a myriad of issues) is complicated. But we must not lose sight of the fact that we are Christians first, Americans second. As citizens of the heavenly kingdom, compassion, the etymology of which is "suffer with," trumps nationalism. We must embrace the governing ethic of our King, "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:37).