Hi tom lynch

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Jonathan Brink
Provoketive Magazine

You posted the following comment:
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Thank you for this great read, Ray. It was only after I lost my standing in the community and destroyed my reputation that I began to see what it truly meant to serve others. So much of it before was "acting" like a "good" Christian and for image, although I did not think so at the time. I took the gifts of the spirit to be behavior modification rules. When I was an outcast, I noticed the good feeling produced the giving rather than the giving making me feel good. It was an overflowing, just spillage of God's abundance, and thus no boast. There was no sacrifice to it, no sense of loss, pain, or inconvenience. I had been gracefully emptied of worth and esteem, which allowed God to act unimpeded.
The point you brought out about the man being unabled to even say aloud the word Samaritan is something I like to bring out as well. But imagine if this story had not made the Gospels and the sunday sermon was on the other question he asked: what do we need for eternal life? If the preacher merely invented a similar story with the moral and instruction of just love your neighbor, you know there would be an outcry in most churches today for several reasons (especially if one substituted a Muslim).