This does not mean that God does not care about the messes we have made. Nouwen reminds us that Luke, in good parable-form, reveals the story of God-incarnate standing along a road-side ushering in the Samaritan of our lives, another notorious sinner and desires nothing more and nothing less than that we would simply quit all the things that stood in the way of what God has created us to be...that we would just start living with God's desires for us at our center. Jesus will not force the Samaritan-like person down our throats to choke forgiveness out of us...indeed, the Samaritan invites us to see ourselves the way that Jesus sees us, with "all hearts open and all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid". That in our wholeness we are not greedy but generous; not callous, but compassionate; not succumbing to the unhealthy temptations of the world, but listening to God's call. That in a life fueled by the love of God and one another the hospitality of Jesus invites our Samaritan to save us-that we may be recognized once again without fear masking our truest identity; we are invited into the very household of God. That God's child came to seek and save the lost...and that would be you and I, and each one we bend the knee to encounter. For the surprise we encounter when we open our eyes to see the one bending their knees to help, are eyes of compassion, eyes of forgiveness, eyes of love divine, the eyes of the very one who can drive the fear from our hearts, filling them with mercy and compassion.