The parable of the Good Samaritan was one of the suggested texts from the church lectionary this past Sunday. Most churchgoers know the story from Luke’s gospel of the unlikely helper of the guy who was attacked, beaten, and left for dead in the ditch.

“Who is my neighbor?” is the question raised by this story, and the question couldn’t be more timely, yet still ambiguous. Social surveys show we know fewer of our logistical neighbors today than in generations past. Yet digitally we are connected to “friends” all over the world that we may never meet face to face. We get instantaneous news from the other side of the globe, but we often don’t know about the heartbreak next door.

Three contemporary issues stand out for me in this story. First, the traveler was making his journey alone. That made him vulnerable to attack. We are more vulnerable to emotional distress or to being exploited when we feel alone. And ironically, nothing causes us to feel more alone than being vulnerable. Bullies know that. Child predators and scam artists know that. Life seems to conspire against us when we feel alone.

Second, the traveler ended up in the ditch through no fault of his own. He was simply going about his business, traveling from point A to point B. We still tend to get caught up in faulty thinking that because something bad happened, he must have brought it on himself. We blame the victim because it makes us feel safer. Experience teaches us that, contrary to our simple but faulty logic, it’s never that simple. Bad things happen to good people. In fact, bad things happen to all people.

Tragedies and disasters happen to people all the time through no fault of their own. Good, healthy people die of undeserved, horrible diseases every day. Bad things happen, period. Sometimes we end up in the ditch like the man in the parable because that’s how life happens.

And in the same way that the person in the ditch was not there because of some evil, those on the road were not there because of their righteousness. Most of the time, life and circumstance put us where we are, on the road or in the ditch, through no fault or goodness of our own. It is a matter of complex circumstance that one person is in the ditch and one person is on the road. And it’s probably only a matter of time until they switch places.

And finally, this parable speaks to the humanitarian crisis on the border that, according to this parable, involves our neighbors. Jesus could not have predicted the nature of our world today, but he could not have told a more relevant or timely story. The political blaming and posturing keep taking the spotlight away from the crisis itself, but there are people in the ditch in desperate need, and we who are on the road have choices to make.

This crisis requires a legislative solution AND a Christian response. However, we should never confuse the two. A legislative solution or an executive order can never be the same as a Christian response.

Any institutional response will focus on what is best for the institution. Whether the institution is a government, a global business, a church or university, or a small family enterprise, institutions will always focus on keeping the institution intact and strong. That’s how they keep going.

But that is not a Christian approach. In the face of human suffering, Jesus always came down on the side of the person or people most adversely affected by the situation. He stood with the people who had no access to political or financial power. He referred to them as “the least of these.”

Political interventions are necessary, but we should never assume that any political decision is also the spiritual one. The institution will not see the face of the person in the ditch. The institution, by its nature, will focus on alleviating the inconvenience caused by the person in the ditch.

The Christian response is to see the face of the person in the ditch, to be a neighbor to that person, even the person we fear. That’s what Jesus told us to do. We do it also because it is only a matter of time until we are the one in the ditch and in need of just such a neighbor.