"...a priest...passed by on the other side of the road...So, too, a Levite...passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan...took pity on him...--Luke 10:31-33

"...a priest...passed by on the other side of the road...So, too, a Levite...passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan...took pity on him...--Luke 10:31-33

"The poor will always be with you..." This phrase appears at least twice in the Bible. It is found first in Deuteronomy 15:11 as an admonition to God's people to step up to the plate and help the disenfranchised and less fortunate members of their society. The second time it appears is in Jesus' rebuke of Judas, who was bemoaning Mary's apparent waste of money in ministering to Jesus before His death.

Both passages get regularly abused by people trying to argue a specific point for or against our duty to the poor. Some among us use Jesus' words to suggest the priority of our faith dismisses a responsibility to the poor, or at the very least de-emphasizes it in favor of a total commitment to evangelism and discipleship. Others among us use the Old Testament passage to proclaim that only by meeting the physical needs of the poor will we be able to get them to listen to the Gospel. Neither extreme is supported by the whole counsel of Scripture.

Marketplace Christians rarely consider discussions of the poor to be related to their work world. To be sure, many are engaged in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, United Way and other charitable giving, but rarely do they see the disenfranchised or less fortunate along the path from their cubicle to their car. Or from their office to their home.

Many Americans, even many American Christians, worship at the altar of competition, believing it produces the best ideas, the best products and the best prices. Even if it's true, and most of us wouldn't dispute it, inevitably there are people who cannot compete effectively--for a host of reasons--and so fall off the paths of plenty and growth, into dead ends or failure. Like the too-busy, too-arrogant travelers in Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan, our workdays are spent in total focus on the race with an intensity that makes us miss the human impact of that intensity. We pass by these casualties of 'survival of the fittest' with nary a glance. In our worst moments, we offer rationalizations for why "it is their fault they are where they are." Survival of the fittest seems palatable when we're near the top.

Mary's was an act of faithful and humble worship to her Lord. Theologians will describe this act's significance in relation to Jesus' impending death, an important truth but one that escapes our notice mostly. What we are more likely to notice, however, is that serving Christ supercedes all else, while not replacing all else. Doing good is never enough; the world is full of people doing good. We must be surrendered to Christ as Lord if we are to clearly understand how our roles at work, and in the lives of people we work with, fit into His Kingdom.

Yet the Bible is explicit in its direction to us to minister to the physical needs of others, so none can correctly say it's not our duty. The story of the Good Samaritan repudiates a pride that suggests that what we're doing, where we're going, is more important than our obligations to the wounded we meet along the way.

Grace does not come to those who serve others; it comes as a gift from God not purchased by any act of our own. Evidence of the receipt of that grace, however, plays out in the selfless act of slowing down our runs in the rat race to notice the wounded in the place where we spend most of our days: our jobs.