No bail out: Jesus is the perfect picture of giving

Two summers ago I flew to Pennsylvania to babysit my grandkids, Drake and Montana, when their parents went on a baseball roadtrip together.

One morning, after we made cupcakes, I read to the kids a children's version of the Good Samaritan parable. Towards the end of the story... for some reason I have yet to understand... Drake ran through the house shaking the sprinkles that were intended to go on the frosting. As he came into the living room, the lid flew off and those chewy little nuggets ... all of them ... went flying, landing deep into the light beige carpet, making a huge mess.

Needless to say, I was not happy. About 30 seconds later I broke the awkward silence with a very frustrated question:

"Where's the vacuum, kids?"

They answered simultaneously. "We don't have one."

"What do you mean, you don't have one? What do you do when your carpet gets dirty?" I pressed.

"Mommy hires a cleaning lady."

Lovely.

Drake immediately got to work, trying to pick the sprinkles out of the rug. Montana, on the other hand, continued looking at the pictures in our book. I then realized there was a practical lesson here.

"Montana, do you know how you could be a Good Samaritan?" I asked.

"No. How?" she answered excitedly.

"You could help Drake and Grandma pick up these sprinkles. That would make God so happy," I explained.

Mo jumped from the couch and got to work.

Realizing we had to find some way to get those colorful little beads out of the carpet, I devised a plan: if we licked our finger and pressed the sprinkles, they would stick to our spit and we could lift them out. Gross, but efficient. That plan lasted for about two minutes. Suddenly Mo stopped working, looked at me and said, "Grandma, I'm really tired of being a Good Samaritan. I quit."

Have you ever felt like that? You sign up for some volunteer committee, only to find that you're the one doing all the work OR you're performing some task for which you are definitely not equipped? I've done that more times than I can count. I once brought a homeless family into our house only to find they had no intention of ever leaving. (Dave was real happy about that one)! Other times I have answered the call to head up some organization only to find that I was way in over my head and there were no life rafts to bail me out.

But many times my problem is that I could help but, like Montana, choose not to. I justify it with, "Someone else will take care of it"; "I'll just make them enablers if I help; they need to learn to stand on their own two feet"; "The time isn't right." Yahda. Yahda. Yahda.

Scripture doesn't give us license to bail out. Jesus was certainly a picture of gracious giving. No matter how tired, no matter how hungry, no matter what time of day, Jesus always had the right words or the right touch, and He always showed compassion and genuine care to His followers. I wonder why we became too busy, too complacent, too selfish, to do the same. Would we view it differently if it were our son, our sister, our parent who was hurting, and someone had a chance to make a difference? Would we then applaud the passer-by whose rationale was "I'm too tired to be the Good Samaritan. I quit"? Surely not.

Montana had an excuse --she was only three years old. I wonder what ours is.