The Priest and the Levite

This morning, Rev. Charles "Dewey" Williams delivered a powerful message on the Lukan text best known as The Good Samaritan. The implications for our current economy were jumping out of the text and out of his words, even though that was not directly the focus of his message. He talked about the way that things happen to us along the road we travel. Sometimes they are caused by people who are out to harm us or to take what we have in whatever way they can. But he held back and did not hammer away at the titans and swindlers of the economy. He left that for us to ponder, and ponder it we did.

When he got to the story of the priest and the levite, the place where we all become vulnerable, he shook us by the shoulders for all the times we allowed our church duties to turn us away from helping those whom God sends us to meet. And while we had our minds on our own failures, then he expanded the horizon dramatically.

He said, "The priest and the levite examined the situation, and they would have helped the man on the side of the road. But they determined that he had a pre-existing condition. They could not help him since he was already beat up before they came along." Boom! Then he expanded on the issues of health insurance companies doing the opposite of what they claim to be about--denying rather than providing access to health care.

Thanks, Dewey, for your insight and faithfulness to speak the truth in these critical times.