The Wounded Man

from the writings of Christopher Thompson, Vicar at St. John’s

Imagine if you will a wayfarer in a foreign land carrying all his goods for the journey on his person. Of a sudden he is most violently attacked and stripped of all his belongings and left for dead on the side of the way. Yet during the night several notables pass by, the first of which is the Minister of Education.

“Oh poor chap, “ the Minister declares, “must have got into that devil rum. ‘Tis a pity. But when we implement the new educational plan, by Jove, all will be remedied. For Ignorance is the great evil of the age and Education its balm.”

Later the Bishop of Bath and Wells happens past. “Alas,” the bishop sighs, “there are many of this ilk reprobated by Divine Justice and destined thus to Perdition. For we cannot all be Eton men,” and His Eminence goes his way.

Then a caravan of gypsies wanders past as is this people’s wont. One of the group, a young lad, notices the suffering man. Signaling the rest of his party, they take him into their midst with utmost hospitality and nurse his wounds.

Now then, who is the just? Who is he who does God’s will? Thus did Our Lord ask the scholar to add sting to the parable. But what of His meaning?

It has oft been interpreted that the wayfarer is our neighbour. And he who aides him completes God’s charity. Yet one need not be Christian to be charitable. For a veritable cadre of public works are now trumpeted before us in the name of progress and humanitarianism. Yet I wish to speak of something that all the official societies in the world cannot remedy. The wayfarer is us and his wounds our sins. Attacked by the Devil in our father Adam, we are stripped bare of divine life as skin is torn from the body. After which all the powers and principalities walked on, mocking man’s fall. And were it not for the lowliness of Christ who deemed equality of God not a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself in the form of a slave, we were lost. For it is Christ the wretched, Christ the despised, who harkens to the side of the way and heals the wounded man.

As for the philanthropic societies, who can be a philanthropist, a lover of men, if he not first recognize his own woundedness and that of the whole world? For man, true advancement is not found in material progress but through healing which leads to wholeness. As it is written: “Be therefore perfect as Your Lord is perfect.”