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After the children gather, I hold up the highway map which I have partially unfolded. "What is this?" I ask. Everyone agrees it is a map.

"What are some reasons we might use a map?" I continue.

"To find out how to get someplace," Mary suggests.

"To find the best way to go," Charles adds.

"Yes," I answer, "we can use maps for both of those things. In addition, the little symbols on the map tell us some of the points of interest we might want to see along the way."

Next I hold up the guides to various area trails, but they are not as easy as the map for the children to identify. Noting the interested, but puzzled, looks on the children's faces, I tell them, "These are guides to some of our local trails. Like the map, they give us information about places to go, how to get there, and what there is to do along the way."

Next I hold up the Bible. "What is this?" I ask.

"The Bible!" comes the children's unhesitating response.

"Yes, it's the Bible," I agree. "And, like the map and trail guides, this is a guide too. It also tells us where to go, how to get there, and what there is to do along the way. It's full of stories, and one of those stories is about some men who were traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Have any of you ever heard of the Good Samaritan?"

About half the children indicate they have. "Okay," I continue. "This is a story some of you already know. It begins with a man who was walking down the road to Jericho. As he walked along, he was attacked by some robbers who beat him up! They stole everything the man had, even his clothes! Then they left him, naked and bleeding, in the ditch by the side of the road.

"Pretty soon, a priest came along. He saw the guy in the ditch, but he carefully avoided him, passing by on the far side of the road. Next a Levite came along. He also saw the bleeding man lying in the ditch, and, like the priest, the Levite avoided the guy and passed on.

"Now, in their defense, I have to say that the priest and the Levite were only doing what they thought was right. In their culture, a person who was bleeding was considered unclean. It would have been a very serious thing for either of them to have touched the guy in the ditch -- and they would have had to touch him in order to help him. So, they weren't just being mean by passing on. They were avoiding all of the inconvenience of days and days of ceremonial cleansing they would have to go through if they touched the wounded man. But, they were also thinking more of their own needs than of the needs of the person in the ditch.

"However, a third person came by. He was a Samaritan. He had more reason that the first two men to avoid the guy in the ditch. Not only was the wounded man bleeding (and therefore unclean), he was also a Jew. And, you see, the Jews and the Samaritans had been enemies for a very long time because of some religious differences. Under normal circumstances, Samaritans and Jews would not even speak to each other.

"And yet, it was the Samaritan who stopped to help the wounded man. The Samaritan helped him up, bound up his wounds, put the battered man on his own animal, and took him to a nearby inn. There the Samaritan paid the innkeeper to take care of the Jew. The Samaritan even told the innkeeper, 'If you spend more money to take care of him than I have given you, I will pay you the difference when I return.'

"What do you think would have happened to the man in the ditch if the Samaritan had followed the rules of his culture like the first two men did?"

"He might have died," Charles answers.

"That's right," I agree. "And yet the Samaritan, whom the Jew himself would have considered an enemy, took care of this total stranger. What a big heart the Samaritan must have had, to care for someone else like that -- someone he didn't even know!"

"This story tells us some very important things. It tells us that everyone, no matter how poor, how beaten, or how dirty he might be -- everyone is our neighbor. And it tells us that God's rules aren't the same as human rules.

"You know, we have many roadmaps in our lives -- guides that tell us where to go, and how to stay on the path. But this story tells us that sometimes it's important to have enough courage to step off the path, to step outside the rules we know, if following the rules would make us act unkindly to another person.

"Jesus acted outside the rules all the time. He healed people on the Sabbath. He ate dinner with people other folks thought were dirty and unworthy of good company. But Jesus never saw anyone as unworthy. And he gave us a different set of rules by which to live, rules of love, mercy, and kindness. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves."

Prayer: "God, thank you for your Son, Jesus, who told these wonderful stories so long ago, stories which continue to show us the way to follow him. When we come to those times in our lives when we have to choose between the rules and kindness, help us, O God, to be kind. Help us to be good neighbors to everyone we meet along the way. Amen."