According to a story widely circulated, a group of young seminarians, pastors-in-training, were given a simple but exciting assignment: Prepare a sermon on Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan and walk down the street to the local radio station to deliver the sermon across the airwaves. What made the assignment unique, however, was the situation their professor had set up for them. Unbeknownst to the young preachers-to-be, a man had been hired to lay beaten and bruised and crying in pain in an alleyway near the radio station. Sadly, each student acted out the wrong portion of the parable quite well, passing the man without offering to help, because apparently they had more important things to do, like . . . preach about helping the beaten and bruised on the side of the road. This past week, we decided to conduct an experiement of our own with our youth group to see how they would respond in a similar situation. After a game and a brief Bible study on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, our youth were instructed that they were going to prepare bags for the homeless but that they first had to walk down to McDonald's to purchase a gift card to put in the bags. Unbeknownst to them, a friend of one of our leaders had been tasked with showing up at McDonald's with a sign begging for food. So, how did the youth respond??? Much to my joy, our youth came back with fewer gift cards than expected because they gave two to the young man in need, along with buying (with their own money) a meal for him. I'll never forget the excited amazement on the face of one of our young girls, when she came up to me and said, "You're never gonna believe this! There is a man begging for food here, and we JUST talked about the Good Samaritan!" Thank God for teenagers who get it!
