If we reflect on our verse today, we can quickly come to the question in our minds, “What does God expect me to do in light of the seeming enormity of the challenge presented in the scholar’s response to Jesus’ question, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’” The answer I suggest we consider is our relationship with God the Father through his Son Jesus. Yet our relationship with Jesus is tied to our relationship with others, especially with the least, the lost and the forgotten. Who are the least in our lives? We all have our list of the least of these. They are the people who are outside of our circle of compassion and concern. They might be individuals of another socioeconomic group, someone with more or less education, people from another political party, people from another culture or lifestyle, or people who don’t believe or think like us. The Christian life is not primarily a list of things to believe. It is about a relationship with God through Christ that forever changes us. This relationship changes all of our other relationships. It actually enables us to begin to see the least of these. The challenge in today’s Gospel reading is understanding the enormity of what the Samaritan did from a twenty-first-century view. Can we imagine today seeing a person we have witnessed spewing hateful and discordant views against minorities and then giving of their time and treasure to assist those same people? That action would significantly perplex us today as the actions of the Samaritan were similarly perplexing to the Jews. Jesus is telling us that we need to step back and see that we are all children of God and capable of sinful and virtuous behavior. The opportunity for each of us is to look for the good in everyone and not expect otherwise just because they live a life different from our own. Our accountability is to respond as Jesus taught – always with kindness and mercy. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I believe that what Jesus meant for each of us is that we are not merely to believe he was the way, but we were to adopt his way of living. Jesus’ way of living is the way to God. What does that mean? Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously – take God seriously.