NEVER TOO BUSY
Leaving Richmond Hospital I came upon an older woman struggling with the pay parking system. I watched her exasperated confusion as well as the number of people ignoring her, walking by on the other side of the walk.
I offered to help. She accepted and offered profuse apologies for interrupting my busy day.
As we tackled the parking meter, her story unfolded: she had brought her sick husband to emergency and was anxious to get back to him.
I have thought a lot about "being busy" since then. "Being busy" has become the badge of honour in the world we live in. Busy people are productive, important, mysterious and admirable. As a trainee vicar, I remember a wise elder suggesting the most important ministry was done in the "interruptions" of life.
Jesus told a story of a man who while walking the Jericho road was mugged, robbed and left to die. Two men came upon him bleeding in a ditch. They were church leaders, busy and important men who walked by him on the other side.
The third man on the scene was a Samaritan, the "enemy" of this injured man due to years of racial and religious hospitality. The Samaritan stopped, tended his injured "enemy," took him to an inn and paid for his care, promising that if it cost more than he had left, he would make up that difference.
Jesus asked his listeners: "Which of these three was the beaten man's neighbour?" Jesus might ask us today: "Are we too busy to be neighbours?"
