Too Busy

In Luke 10:30ff, Jesus tells the parable of a man who is beaten by thieves and left on the side of the road nearly dead.  A priest comes along and passes by the other side of the road.  Later a temple worker came upon the man and kept going as well.  Finally, a Samaritan, who was regarded as an enemy and of little worth, came by and took pity on him  This Samaritan dressed his wounds and took hm to a nearby inn, paying for his keep and giving the innkeeper money to care for the man until he could return.

The point of the parable was a response of Jesus to a man who asked him who his neighbor was that he should love as the Word directs and the answer is whomever God puts in our  path, needing our help.  A side question that comes up is why did the priest and the temple worker pass by, why did God's appointed ministers fail to take advantage to minister to this man so obviously in need?

The parable doesn't reveal the answer to that question and Jesus doesn't elaborate on that thought, so we are left to conjecture.  Perhaps they were afraid to get involved as the thieves might still be nearby waiting for someone to stop or that the man was feigning his injuries to lure them in.  Possible but not really likely as the context gives the clear implication that they were choosing not to be neighborly.

It is more likely that they felt themselves too important to be delayed by this messy task.  They may well have had duties to attend to and somewhere to be.  Possibly they were heading to the Temple and didn't want to be late or defiled by his blood.  I don't actually think so as they were going down the road, which indicates away from Jerusalem.  Whatever the reason, they couldn't be bothered to stop, they had other things to do and could not be dettained by this man's needs.  They were too busy.

Too busy, other more important things to be given attention than the ministry opportunity God had placed in their path.  Has this ever happend to you, or should I say lately, where you pass up an opportunity to help someone along the way because you had important, even possibly church, work to attend?   Do you find yourself simply too busy with important, godly things to take on even one more opportunity to reach out to someone?  Do you find yourself too busy to give attention to anyone who is not on your schedule of events.  Would you have to pass by or would you stop for a ministry opportunity God presented to you today?

What I'm wondering is: Are you too busy to answer the Spirit's call to service?  Or to put it simply, "Are you too busy?"  Jus' Askn.