Hello, Lollipop here. 

 

Names are important, aren’t they? In the Bible, people wanted their children to grow up to be like their names; strong, kind, happy or whatever.

In the story I’m going to tell you today, we don’t know the names of any of the people involved. That might sound as if they weren’t very nice, or important, people. I’m sure they were, but it’s what happened that was important. And I know what happened, because I was there.

 

It seems that a man wanted to travel from a city called Jerusalem to a city called Jericho. And to get there he had to go on a long, and rather dangerous, road. It was dangerous because there were lots of places that robbers and bad men could hide, then they could jump out on other people and steal from them—and that was what happened to this man. Except that this time the robbers were really bad, and beat him up after they had taken his things. Not very nice.

 

Well, it just so happened that I was carrying my master along that road too that day. From a distance, I could see something lying in the road. I didn’t know what it was but I saw a couple of people stop, look at it and then just walk past. When we got closer, I could see that it was this man, and my master told me he wanted me to stop.

I didn’t know what he was going to do. The man was a Jewish man, my master was a Samaritan and the two hated each other. In fact, I wondered if the man on the road was even hurt at all, maybe he was just pretending and was going to beat up my master. Maybe the robbers were still around. I didn’t like it, but my master wanted to help him, so there was nothing I could do.

Anyway, my master managed to get him cleaned up and even tore his own robe to make bandages so that the man didn’t keep on bleeding. Then he put the man on my back, and we walked on until we saw an inn.

 

It was rather a relief to get the two of them off my back, and I stood and had a long drink of water while my master took this man inside. After a while, my master came out again, talking to the innkeeper. “Now, you take this money and look after him,” I heard him say. “I have to come down this road, in a couple of days’ time, to get home, so I’ll stop and see how he is. And if you’ve spent any more money than that, I’ll give you the rest when I see you.”

Well that was rather daft, if you ask me. The innkeeper might pretend he had spent lots of money just to get some more out of my master.

Except that I don’t think he would have. I think that when people see someone doing a good deed, it sort of rubs off on them, and makes them feel they want to do a good deed themselves. I’ve had that happen to me before.

 

And talking of good deeds and showing kindness; of all the people on the road that day, only my master stopped to offer help. Why didn’t anybody else?

It makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, anyone can be nice to their friends, but what about someone who doesn’t like you, or never talks to you?

 

You know, my friend Jesus told this story to a crowd of people and then he asked them “which one of these people was a neighbour to the poor man?”

I wonder what you think?