Their ensuing saga recalls another story marked by violence and two strangers who met a long time ago. One had been beaten, stripped naked, ignored by passersby and left for dead. The other, a foreigner, a Samaritan, came upon him along the road.
The two stories’ endings, one real life, another a parable, could not be more different.
In the contemporary story there was neither healing nor help. Instead, between these strangers there was mistrust, fighting and killing. And so, tragically, Mr. Martin is dead. And Mr. Zimmerman, while alive, is cursed by many to wander Cain-like the rest of his life.
But in the parable that Jesus taught us, the Samaritan bandaged the stranger’s wounds. He helped and healed him. The stranger’s life was restored.
It is too late, unfortunately, to change the tragedy of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.
But every day, we are offered opportunities to make choices. We can attack the stranger as the robbers did on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. We can ignore the stranger, as the priest and passersby did when they saw the injured man. Or we embrace the stranger and provide him with help and hope.
Our contemporary sagas can end differently when the ancient parable is heeded:
“Go and do likewise,” Jesus said.