The Good Samaritan on Sunday Morning (Luke 10:25-37)

You know the parable. A man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest and a Levite walk past. Then a Samaritan,  the despised outsider, stops, tends his wounds, carries him to safety, and pays for his care. Jesus holds him up as the model of what it means to be a neighbor.

What does a Good Samaritan look like in 2026?

Let me tell you about two of them.

The Man Who Opened His Church. In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, protests erupted across Minneapolis and cities nationwide. In many places, the National Guard was called in. Curfews were imposed. Tension was high.

In Baltimore, a Black pastor, Reverend Dr. Robert Turner Jr., watched the unrest unfold. He could have locked the doors of his church, played it safe, and waited for things to cool down. Instead, he opened them. He turned his church into a hub,  a place where protesters could rest, get water, charge their phones, and find sanctuary. He didn’t ask whether the people coming through the doors agreed with him on every point. He didn’t vet their politics. He saw human beings in need, and he acted.

That’s the Samaritan. Not the one with the cleanest theology or the most impressive credentials. The one who stops and does something.

The Woman Who Knocked on Every Door. A few years ago, a Black woman named LaTosha Brown co-founded the Black Voters Matter Fund. The mission is simple: build political power in Black communities, especially in the rural South. But here’s what makes her a Good Samaritan in the modern sense.

During a covid surge, when rural hospitals were overwhelmed and vaccine access was sparse, Brown and her team didn’t just make phone calls and send emails. They drove. They knocked on doors in small Alabama towns where the nearest clinic was an hour away. They transported elderly people to get vaccinated. They brought food to families who were sick and couldn’t leave the house.

Was it efficient? No. Was it safe? Not entirely. But that’s what the Samaritan did. He got down in the ditch, dirt and all, and helped the person who couldn’t help himself.

The Thread That Connects Them. The priest and the Levite in the parable had good reasons to keep walking. Maybe they were afraid. Maybe they were in a hurry. Maybe they didn’t want to get ceremonially unclean. The Samaritan had reasons to keep walking, too; Samaritans and Jews didn’t get along. Nobody would have blamed him for passing by.

But he didn’t.

And that’s the thread connecting Reverend Turner, LaTosha Brown, and countless unnamed Good Samaritans in the Black community today. They see need, and they respond. Not because it’s convenient. Not because the person is worthy. Because need itself is the call.