Go and do likewise.

Jorge Cocco Santangelo’s rendering of the Good Samaritan invites reflection on mercy that transcends expectation and borders.

Fifth Sunday After Pentecost – Worship Service – July 13, 2025

Bulletin-07-13-2025
Christian Lesson: Luke 10:25–37

This week, guest preacher Rev. Barbara L. Thomas delivered a theologically grounded and prophetically challenging sermon titled “2-Step Instructions.” Preaching from the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Pastor Barbara reminded us that the call to discipleship in the United Church of Christ is not about theological precision or performative charity—it is about embodied compassion and transformative solidarity.

The “two steps” are deceptively simple: Go and do the same. But as Pastor Barbara showed us, these steps demand everything: empathy, humility, courage, and a willingness to be changed. In Jesus’ story, the neighbor is not the priest or the religious elite, but the one who acted with mercy—someone marginalized, unexpected, and systemically excluded. That choice, she reminded us, is not incidental. It is revelatory.

This parable is not a private moral tale—it is a public theological confrontation. It invites us to affirm that the **Kin-dom of God** is not built on religious status or doctrinal gatekeeping but on relational justice, community repair, and the full inclusion of all people. The Jericho Road—like so many of our modern systems—needs restructuring. We are not merely called to help the wounded, we are called to change the road.

Pastor Barbara closed with a challenge and a hope: The church—this church—is needed now more than ever, not as a sanctuary of avoidance, but as a community of action. Our covenant with God and each other is not passive. It is participatory. We are called, together, to become the Samaritan: to show up, cross the road, and build a world where healing is possible and neighbor truly means everyone.

📖🙏 Order of Worship Highlights:

• Prelude: “Wonderful Words of Life”
• Call to the Heart and Invocation led by Ed Vickery
• Hebrew Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:10–14
• Gospel Reading: Luke 10:25–37
• Sermon: “2-Step Instructions” – Rev. Barbara L. Thomas
• Postlude: “Will You Come and Follow Me?”

Our gratitude to the Bold and Beautiful Covenant Group for providing refreshments following worship.

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar.
It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Vietnam, 1967