In his final sermon, given the night before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took as his text the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan. In the story, a man is attacked by thieves and left by the roadside. Several travelers happen upon him, but they pass by. Eventually, someone does stop to help, although it is the one person who might have had a reason not to. He is a Samaritan and the victim is a Jew. Those folks didn't get along any better back then than they do now. According to Dr. King, those who passed by the injured man were asking themselves the wrong question: "If I help this man, what will happen to me?"
The Good Samaritan stopped to help because he asked the right question: "If I don't help this man, what will happen to him?" Dr. King spent a lifetime asking the right question. If we truly want to honor him, then we need to ask ourselves that question, too. No matter how many reasons we may think we have not to.
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