I have been involved in the faith-based legal aid organization, Administer Justice, in different capacities for about 12 years. I am an attorney. AJ is an organization founded by an attorney, Bruce Strom, who left his lucrative law practice to provide pro bono (free) legal services for people who can’t afford a lawyer. AJ helps churches run Gospel Justice Centers.

Bruce’s book, Gospel Justice, describes his calling and the journey he began over 20 years ago. Gospel Justice follows the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan and what it means to love your neighbor as God commands. Implicit in the parable is the question: who is my neighbor?

I have learned recently, that parables were common in the rabbinical tradition of the time, and the set up of a priest, a Levite and a third person was a common parable structure. It is the equivalent to the modern set up for a joke: a priest, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar…..

According to Marty Solomon of the BEMA Podcast, the third person (the one through whom the lesson is learned) was often a Pharisee in the rabbinical Jewish tradition of the First Century. Jesus turned the tables by making the third person a Samaritan.

Samaritans had Hebrew DNA. They were ancestors of the Israelites who were left behind during the exile. They had intermarried and changed their religious practices to accommodate their mixed marriages and life without the Temple. The Jewish remnant that returned to rebuild the Temple saw them as mongrels who abandoned the faith. For Centuries, Samaritans were despised by the Jews who rebuilt the Temple and carried on the traditions of the Mosaic Law.

The priests and Levites represent good, religious people and the devotion to traditional values. They represent respectable, hard-working people who have faithfully kept those traditional values through hundreds of years of faithful adherence in difficult times.

When the priest and Levite in the parable pass by the anonymous, injured man on the road, we react with modern sensibilities that are honed by two millennia of Christian thought, tradition, and conditioning to judge them. First Century Pharisees, however, would have viewed the situation differently.

The injured man had no identify. They might have wondered who he was. (Raising the question: who is my neighbor?) Pharisees and Sadducees may have disagreed on whether aid should be offered to Gentiles, but they would have agreed that the mongrel Samaritans did not merit their aid.

The rules that governed these things were complex and nuanced. (See Introduction to the Jewish Rules of Purity and Impurity) Becoming impure meant that a priest could not attend to his ritual duties without going through a time of ritual cleansing. The risk that the injured man might be dead was no small consideration to them.

Perhaps, this seems like being generous to them, but their lives revolved around the rituals handed down centuries ago in the Torah. They were sacred, and their identity and their purpose in life revolved around maintaining those rituals, which they had done since the time of Moses, the great, great grandson of Levi.

If we think times and people are different now, they are, but less so than we might be tempted to think. Most modern Americans (even religious ones) do not practice ritual like First Century Jewish leaders did. We are less religiously ritualistic, perhaps, than ever before. Yet, we are no different, really, in our devotion to our own values and doctrines.

We often fail to help people in need because we are focused on the other things we are doing. Good things. In our busyness, we don’t see people hurting in front us, or we ignore the people in front of us because they get in the way of the good things we are doing.

We are also divided, like the Jews and the Samaritans. A 2016 study by Brown University found that the percentage of people who strictly follow a political party has more than doubled since 1978. (See U.S. Is Polarizing Faster Than Other Democracies, Study Finds) A 2024 study found that personal and political polarization in the United States is at a 20-year high, and only 10% of Americans have any hope that this polarization will change. (See Political Polarization)

We may not be embroiled in a civil war, but we are certainly living through “a civility war”, as Bruce Strom says. While history shows a tendency of people to villainize the “other”, this tendency is on the rise in the United States, whether the “other” is poor, immigrant, minority, Muslim, rich, white, liberal, or a “none”.

Those labels don’t matter to God, but we have never been more polarized – at least in the last 50 years. This is certainly true of the divide between people who identify with Christian values and those who don’t, but it is also true among Christians.

The Church has gotten caught up in a culture war. We are consumed with it, and the intensity of that culture war is most apparent during a presidential election like we are entering into now.

We are focused on protecting our traditional values that are under siege. We often become like the Levites who were concerned about preserving their ancestral values with singular devotion, blinded to the plight of anonymous people we encounter on our way.

We are focused on fighting our good fights. Like the priests were focused on remaining ritually purity to perform their priestly duties, we have roads we will not cross. We do not dare placate “woke” culture on the right or feed into “white privilege” on the left.

Meanwhile, we have vulnerable neighbors all around us, people for whom Jesus died, who are in desperate shape and need help. What would Jesus say to us about these times?

Judgment of the “others” comes easy in our divided cultural environment. Christians are easily caught in this undertow. A 2007 Barna study of people ages 16-29 revealed that nearly 90% believe the church is too judgmental. (See Young people see Christians as judgmental, study shows) This perception may be one of the factors that caused approximately 40 million people to stop attending church in the last 30 years! (See The Great Dechurching)

It seems we have forgotten that mercy triumphs over judgment in the kingdom of God. (James 2:13) The words that Jesus spoke resonate just as poignantly today: “’Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’” (Matthew 9:13)

Strict adherence to rules (and traditional values) – like the Levite who observed the 613 rules of the Talmud – drives to fight to hold onto the power and heritage of Christian influence it has in our culture, but we sometimes seem to forget or ignore the heart of the rules (people) and God’s heart for justice, mercy and faithfulness.

When the good things we are doing get in the way of helping other people in need, we ignore the weightier matters of the law. For this reason, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for tithing mint, dill, and cumin while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness, which Jesus says are those “weightier matters”. (Matt. 23:23)

We need to have the faith of trusting God with the outcomes when we break from the good things that preoccupy us to do the right thing for a vulnerable neighbor. Our values should drive us not to battle, but to aid the poor, the blind, the oppressed, the prisoner, and the stranger in our midst. The people that we villainize and fight are the very people Jesus laid his life down to save.

I have met with many people in my 12 years with Administer justice who would have been anonymous strangers on the road to me. I still remember many of them, like the elderly black woman who suffered a botched surgery with infections in her knee. She could no longer walk or leave her small apartment without help. I could not personally help her with her legal issues because of the statute of limitations, but we prayed and wept together. Sometimes, all we can do is give people the dignity of listening, feeling their pain, praying and lamenting with them.

I remember an Hispanic man living in an apartment in a building with leaky windows and leaky plumbing. He was desperate to find help. His wife had developed a severe reaction to the mold that grew in his apartment. He could not get the large, multi-state apartment owner to do anything about it. After just a couple of letters and phone call from me, he was able to break the lease, keep the security deposit, and find another place.

I have to admit that I have not always volunteered my time enthusiastically. I am busy! My plate is already full! I have more clients than I can handle on my own, and it would be easy (it is easy!) to put my head down and absorb myself with meeting the needs of my clients who pay me.

I am always amazed, however, at the sense of knowing that I am in the center of God’s will when I am sacrificing my time for others. I am amazed at how God “shows up” in these encounters – not just for them, but for me!

As I finish this up, I am struck that the priest and the Levite were traveling alone in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. There is wisdom in the admonition to “consider how we may stir up one another to love and good deeds.” (Heb. 10:24) We are the Body of Christ together! No one should suffer justice alone, and no one can do justice alone.

I am stating the obvious when I say that the Samaritan was the “good neighbor” in the parable. Not the religiously devoted priest or the Levite who championed traditional values. The neighbor we should love doesn’t need a name, and history and worldview don’t matter in how we respond to them.

I will end with a plug for Administer Justice. AJ provides a practical and easy way for a church body to be intentional about loving mercy, doing justice, and walking humbly with God in doing the things that God desires of us: doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God. AJ exists to help make it easy for a local church to do this.

If you want more information, people with a heart for God and for people are standing by to speak with you.

Listen to the testimony of Andi Franklin, a local Justice Champion who responded to God’s heart and got involved in her local church:

Even if you can’t personally get involved, you can lend your support with a one-time or recurring donation: