Ok, So today I flick onto the Norwich YFC Forum and this is a post

‘I fell over today, during my break at work, i’d gone for a walk down a country lane. I slipped on some leaves and landed heavily on my side. I ended up unable to move. I called my mum and consequently spent a few hours in A and E. Luckily i’m just bruised and sore.

I as disgusted and upset at the response i got. Picture this.

I’m sitting on a wet country road in a leafy muddy puddle, sobbing my heart out, in agony. You walk/cycle/drive past. would you stop and help me? or at least ask if i was ok?

Not one person did. A lady walked past - it’s a fairly narrow lane so i was unmissable. she looked at me, looked away and kept going.
More than 10 cars drove past, in all of them someone looked at me, but they kept going. some cyclists ignored me too (and one lorry driver and 2 people on motorbikes)’

Taken from Norwich YFC Forum - Link

Reading this reminded me of a song we had at primary school which went ‘would you walk by on the otherside’ and of course talks about the parable of the good samaritan.

This post reminded me of that too but it also reminded me of something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, and that is that we very much live in a very individual, closed society, a society where you could walk for miles and not be spoken to by a single person.

I think one thing that has surprised me since beginning the commuting lifestyle twice a week is that businessmen get on the same train every day of the year, sit in the same place, near the same people yet never speak to anyone. People on a busy tube station get annoyed because they have to wait a minute for the next train.

I think the point that this post says to us and indeed something I think God has been teaching me about recently is the importance of helping others, Jesus spent his entire ministry helping others, teaching us to help the least and encouraging his disciples to help others yet so often, as is the case in the story of the good samaritan it’s the person you most expect to help who just walks on by.

As Christians I think our biggest challenge is to help others regardless of who they are, regardless of how low our street cred (if you’re lucky enough to have any) goes because of it. As I travel through London I feel God challenging me to look out for people who need help, whether it’s people with pushchairs who might struggle with tube station stairs or people who look generally lost. It’s so easy to slip into society and just be plugged into our mp3 players and not watch the world around, to just walk on not caring when Jesus teaches the exact opposite.

As Christians we need to break down social boundaries, we need to help people regardless of whoever they are, one example of this, and a huge learning point for me happened over october half term. I was with Caroline and we saw a chav on the floor by the community centre by her house who didn’t look so good, when we got back from the pub he was still there but with 2 friends so we went to see if he was alright, turns out he was drunk and hadn’t got up (or been properly conscious) for 2 hours so we helped get his mum down, helped him into the car etc.

And that, for me was a learning curve because although I try not to get swept along with society the whole anti-chav thing seems to be everywhere, and I’m thinking that perhaps as Christians we shouldn’t conform to this, we should treat everyone equally whether they’re a drunk chav or a tatooed goth!