Quiet Time: Clobbering the Clobber Texts

Dear God of boundless mercy,

This morning I open Luke's Gospel and find a lawyer testing Jesus with the oldest question in the book: "Who is my neighbor?" And instead of a tidy answer, Jesus tells the story of a man beaten half to death on the Jericho road — and the Samaritan who knelt in the dust beside him, pouring oil and wine into wounds that were not his to heal.

Lord, when I come to the hard passages of Scripture — the texts that have been wielded like stones against the vulnerable — teach me to read the way that Samaritan loved: up close, with trembling hands, unwilling to cross to the other side. The Church Fathers remind us that You Yourself are the true Samaritan, the One who found humanity broken on the roadside and carried us to the inn of Your Church, paying the full cost of our healing. If You did not pass us by in our wretchedness, how can I pass by anyone whom Your image inhabits?

Give me the courage to sit with difficult texts the way the desert mothers sat with silence — not rushing to conclusions, but waiting for Your Spirit to illuminate what pride or fear has obscured. May I never use Scripture as a weapon when You handed it to me as bread.