At my home church, Rayne UMC in New Orleans, our pastor (Rev. Dr. Jay Hogewood) offered an extraordinary sermon on the familiar Biblical passage about the Good Samaritan. His presentation helped me hear the story from a new perspective and relate it to ministry to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

In part, he said that we are called to have compassion on our neighbors; go toward them instead of away from them; to be present with them instead of passing them by; to see the harm done and enter into it with the wounded; to “get out of the words and into the world.” And he gently pointed out that our Lord did not speak cruel and critical words against the priest or the Levite.

This month, for this blog, we will consider how the Church can be godly neighbors to survivors, and how we can show mercy like the Samaritan. Survivors were robbed at a young age, wounded and cast aside, and church folk have too often intentionally avoided interacting with such pain. It is time for us to intentionally show mercy.    

JESUS MAFA. The Good Samaritan, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48381 [retrieved April 6, 2025]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).