One of our young members is freshly home from his junior year in college; I can't wait to see him. The reason Eric is only now getting home is that he's been following a bit in my footsteps. The story goes like this. Right around the time Eric was born some twenty-one years ago, I was digging in the dirt of the Golan Heights, two miles northeast of the Sea of Galilee. I was taking a course in archaeology while pursuing a graduate degree, and felt I could learn more with the soil as my textbook than I could in a classroom. I signed up for the dig at Bethsaida, a site identified just a year earlier by the Israeli archaeologist, Rami Arav. It was a wonderful experience, one that Eric is now undergoing for a second time. I'm anxious to talk to Eric about Bethsaida ... and more so, to find out about my friend, Rami Arav. Rami is a native born Israeli, a Sabra. This is how native born Israelis characterize themselves - as Sabras. A Sabra is a cactus, with a tough exterior to withstand harsh climates, but penetrate the tough exterior of a Sabra cactus, and you find a warm, sweet interior. The same goes with most Sabra Israelis.

One evening at dinner, twenty-one years ago, we amateur archaeologists could see that this Rami, the tough Sabra, was shaken. His exterior had softened and we could see the heart of the man. Rami had just heard from his wife, whose car had broken down earlier in the day. She had been driving with their two young children to Haifa, a Mediterranean port some thirty-five miles to the west. Rami told us he was always was a bit nervous when his wife made the relatively short drive, because the road went directly through Palestinian territory. Back in 1989, tension between Arabs and Israelis was especially high.

When her car broke down, Rami's wife and kids were almost immediately surrounded by some Palestinian boys. As Rami was telling the story, it was almost as if he himself could not comprehend what happened. Think of yourself twenty-one years ago, with a stalled car in the South Bronx. You hope for the best and expect maybe the worst. The young Palestinians walked Rami's family to one of the houses in the nearby Arab village. Rami's daughters were young and his wife was frightened. Immediately the doors of hospitality were flung open. Lamb, and pita and salad and lemonade were quickly prepared and served. The hosts and guests spoke in different tongues, but the language of hospitality is universal. Within the hour, a local mechanic had the car purring like new. Nobody would accept even a shekel and soon Rami's family was back on the road to Haifa.

That small token of hospitality in the midst of a hostile land probably did not change the course of history in the Middle East. But it changed a young mother. It changed Rami. Again, it did not change history, but it changed his story. Did you ever note the relationship to the word history - and his story? For Rami, his story changed, or at least softened, the views of many people who heard the word Palestinian and immediately thought terrorist. It may not be much ... but it is something.

For those with more than a nodding acquaintance with the Scriptures, this story of the Good Samaritan is a familiar one. I cannot hear this story any longer without thinking about Rami Arav, and the hospitality of one Arab village toward one Jewish family. Our Gospel text two weeks ago told of the refusal of a Samaritan village to welcome Jesus and his disciples. How refreshing to hear this tale of hospitality, rather than hostility, offered to an "enemy." As if a young mother and two children could be anyone's enemy!

Very few parables of Jesus have had the impact of the story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans and the Jews mixed like oil and water ... and we see from the Gulf how well that is going. A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The road was a dangerous one ... people traveling alone were often beaten and robbed. Sometimes worse. When you slipped on your sandals and set out on the road, you hope for the best and expect maybe the worst. Life is like that, at times.

The man, sure enough, got the worst of it. Beaten, robbed, left in the dust half dead. Two men of good repute, a priest and a Levite, saw the victim on the side of the road. You could not help but see him. These two did not see him to help, however. Both made a wide detour around him. And then the most unlikely of things occurred. In the same way, 2,000 years later, the same way that Palestinians proved down right neighborly to a Jewish mother and her children, an outsider, a Samaritan who was passing by - did not pass by. He stopped; he stooped. He tended to the wounds and brought the man to a place of recovery.

Did the Samaritan wonder, I wonder, if the man in the road was a Jew? That was the furthest thing from his mind. That bedraggled half-dead man in the road was a person in need, and that was enough. For the Samaritan, the question was not, "Who is he?" The question was, "What kind of person am I?" One person sees another person in need, and lends a helping hand. Why the helping hand? The question was not, "Do I know this person?" "Does this person share my race, my color, my creed?" "Does this person salute the same flag as I?" The real question is this one, "What kind of person am I?" Our worship program bears the question, "Who is my neighbor?" Equally important for those seeking to be disciples of Jesus, is this question: "Who am I?"

The man on the roadside is helpless as a babe in arms. He can care for himself no more than say, Ella Victoria can care for herself. That's why her parents make Baptismal promises on her behalf. They make promises to introduce Ella to Jesus, and to pass along stories like this one - the story of a man as helpless as a babe in arms. Mom and Dad will want nothing to hinder Ella in her Christian calling. Mom and Dad will remind her that the man in the story was "as helpless as you were Ella, at the time of your Baptism." As Ella is introduced to Jesus, she will be encouraged to be right neighborly to persons in need. Not because of who they are ... but rather, because of who Ella has grown to be!

Have you even been to P. J. Clarke's, the well-known Midtown restaurant? In addition to fine cuisine, they serve up good advice. The sign over the bar proclaims, "Every day is a struggle, so we must be kind to one another." Evidently the advice translates well into Aramaic, the language of the Samaritan. And it translates well into Arabic, the language of the Palestinian! Does it translate well onto your tongue and mine? "Every day is a struggle, so we must be kind to one another."

In our worship program this morning is a bookmark encouraging us to tend to the wounds of the hungry, by supporting the world hunger initiative of the Lutheran Church. But the command of Jesus, "Go and do likewise," is more than words on a bookmark - it is the very mark of our Christian calling.

When you return home this morning, tape the bookmark to the refrigerator door ... story side out. The one who tells this story once walked to a cross on bloody feet, bound and determined to bind up our wounds. That was right neighborly of Jesus, and for Christ's sake, may we find the courage to "go and do likewise!"