Who Deserves What?

Yesterday, on my way to work, I drove up the exit ramp of the Interstate highway to a traffic light where I take a left turn. On the side of the road was a man in a wheelchair and another man standing next to him. Both looked scruffy. The man in the wheelchair held a cardboard rectangle with homemade  writing saying, "Disabled veteran. Anything helps."

By the time I dug my wallet from my back pocket and thumbed a couple of dollar bills from it, the light had changed to green. There were two cars behind  me and I decided I couldn't hold them back, so I went ahead and didn't give the guys any money.

Almost immediately I started thinking about the parable of the good Samaritan. Didn't the first passers-by decline to help the bleeding man by the roadside because they were too busy? At least in their own opinions? Was I any better than they were?

The man in the  wheelchair wasn't bleeding - he'd done his bleeding some time ago - and who knows what his circumstances are now. Possibly he shuns work and prefers to make a career of  sorts from begging. Our local newspaper, whose editorial policy is somewhere to  the right of the Hapsburg monarchy, featured a story once about a man who uses an Interstate exit for begging, and manages about twenty dollars an hour, much more than he'd get with a minimum wage job. Clearly the message was that roadside beggars are undeserving of anyone's charity.

But, who cares, really, what his motive is or whether he deserves any of my hard earned money? The good Samaritan wasn't concerned at all about the history of the man he helped. Jesus never mentioned in the parable how the injured man "fell in" with robbers. Maybe he "fell in" with robbers because he was used to their company, being a robber himself. Possibly they caught him trying to take their ill-gotten loot, and beat him up for that reason.

My point, and I do have one, is that it's a waste of  time and energy to try and determine if a roadside beggar deserves our help. And I'll try to do better in the future, even if it inconveniences motorists behind me.