I don’t know if you have heard the string of news reports about people doing nothing in a time when immediate action was required. One situation involved a 78 year old man who was hit by a car and as he was lying there, no one did anything. Another incident happened recently where a woman was in a hospital waiting room and ended up dying. The sad part of this was that there were people (including security guards and doctors) who just watched and did nothing.
This got me thinking.
What causes a person not to get involved?
2) Self-centeredness. The last thing we want to do is get involved in a situation because we are too busy or we know that it will require too much from us.
3) Apathy and indifference. Some of us just don’t really care of about things in life and we don’t want anything to disturb it either. We are perfectly content to live life without any purpose.
4) Lost of values. We have devalued human life in our generation. The concept of the “imago dei” has been lost. This causes us to see people as objects rather than people who are valued because they are made in the image of God.
To address each of these reasons (which is by the way, not exhaustive), we need people of courage… people who care… people who are willing to make a difference.
Aren’t some of the same principles involved in reaching out to people and showing them the love of Christ? Whether it is fear, self-centeredness, apathy, indifference or lost of values, we would rather do nothing and just do what is secure and safe, which is to hang out with the same group of people and never leave our comfort zones to love people.
Sometimes loving our neighbor is harder than we think. No wonder, Jesus had to use a Samaritan to make His point (Lk 10:30-37).
Here are the 2 videos of the incidents that I have described above. It is pretty disturbing.