Let me read you the Sea Cadet Promise

I promise to serve my God, the Queen, my Country and the Sea Cadet Corps, and obey the orders of my superior officers. I will be proud of my uniform, and be smart and seamanlike in wearing it, and always do my duty.

And it’s that last word - duty - that I want you all to think about this morning.  By duty I mean the desire or need to do the right thing.

If I were to ask everyone here what they consider their duty is I’m sure that I would get dozens of different answers – the Vergers and Servers and Sidesmen would say that it is their duty to ensure that everything is in place for the service runs and that it runs smoothly; the Choir might say that it is their duty to turn up for rehearsals and and the Sea Cadets here today it is part of their duty to turn at parade nights ; others amongst you may say that it is their duty to come to church, to pray for the sick so on.

But what about the characters in our last reading and in particular the Samaritan?

His is a story that has been told over and over again - till we reach the point in our culture where the very word Samaritan has a completely different meaning. Say the word Samaritan to most people in this country and they'll mention the helpline organisation that deals with people who are at the very lowest they can be.  As a result, most of us will have the highest regard for people who volunteer for the Samaritans.

For so many of us this is a story we have heard since childhood. It holds no more shocks than the Sound of Music or the Wizard of Oz (though obviously the songs aren't as good!).

When Jesus told this story of violence and fear it would have sent shockwaves through his audience every time it was told, because of the twist in the ending. This would have been a whodunnit with an ending that no one at that time would have seen coming.

It's hard for us to imagine just how this would have sounded to the people of that world 2,000 years ago; Samaritan was not a word that inspired admiration or regard in the Jewish nation. It was a word that inspired contempt.

Compared to the Levite and the Priest Samaritans were outsiders, unclean and not to be trusted; if the right wing press had existed back then, then I'm sure it would have been printing many articles about how the Samaritans were the cause of all the problems in the societyof the day. It was a word used sometimes to describe heretics or people who broke ceremonial law.

So our traveller, for whatever reason, is journeying along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Perhaps he should have waited till the following day when it was lighter; perhaps he should have travelled with other people. Perhaps, you might say, he ended up bringing it on himself making such a dangerous journey on his own.

And so Jesus' parable starts off with him telling of a vicious attack. The thieves didn't just rob the traveller, they left him for dead, which gives us an idea of just how horrible the attack would have been. However foolish we may think the traveller was for attempting this journey himself, we can only feel compassion for him left alone and wounded.

On the arrival of the priest, perhaps those listeners would have thought things were going to look up. But priests were forbidden to touch a dead body otherwise they themselves became unclean for a time and so he would be excluded from the temple. He wasn't prepared to risk that, so he stays on the other side of the road.

The Levite teases us that he would be the hero, as he seems to come closer, but he too crosses over to the other side.

And then the Samaritan arrives. For the crowd listening, this would surely have been the arrival of the villain of the piece; as if the traveller's misfortunes were not enough, now this dangerous outsider had turned up.

And yet, so surprisingly for the crowd, this is the point where the traveller's fortunes start to look up. And in this briefest of tales we learn quite a lot about the character of the Samaritan.

The first thing he does is feel compassion. Well frankly, that's the easy bit - I'm sure the priest and the Levite would have felt a pang or two of compassion - no doubt they would have told their friends what an awful sight they'd seen on the road to Jericho last night.

The Samaritan, on the other hand, his first instinct is to see what he can do, to do the right thing, to administer first aid to the badly beaten man. If he was conscious then surely he'd have been afraid and confused, feeling that uncomfortable mixture of emotions that victims of crime feel. And yet the Samaritan was able to take him to the nearest inn, so he must have found a way of calming him, of assuring him that he could be trusted and that he was safe. At the inn we learn more about the Samaritan, his credit is good, clearly the innkeeper was prepared to trust him. And then the story finishes as we hear that the Samaritan was prepared to come back and make sure the traveller was all right.

And so there we have it - shocking and controversial at the time and with such a clear message for the whole church and the world at large.

Jesus challenges us that having good intentions, wanting to do the right thing, and feeling bad about a situation isn't enough: that it's easy for us to be like the priest and the Levite; that we can always find an excuse not to do something. It's what we are prepared to do that matters. Saying we'll do something is all well and good - our willingness to actually do it is a mark of our character and our maturity.

But Jesus has a message for the whole Christian community - that we should not seek to demonise or exclude communities of people. That god's love will work through people of any creed or background because God makes his holy spirit available to all people.

If you look you can always find people of integrity and compassion - people who want to contribute to society. This is what Jesus calls each of us to be - many of us see ourselves as being part of misunderstood communities, our challenge is to roll up our sleeves and get involved - and if people are frightened or confused about our motives then we have to find the words to comfort and calm them.

Even if we see ourselves as outsiders, because of our age, our gender our nationality, we can refuse to act as victims and effect change beyond ourselves. In doing so, we help to change what society may see as "who is in and who is out" and even if we don't tear down the boundaries completely, we can at least help to move the goalposts.  Within the Cadets we all come from different backgrounds and it is our duty to make sure that nobody is treated any differently because of this.

The simple lesson of the parable is that as a human being it is our duty to care for anyone in need regardless of race, religion or other divisions created by man just as the Samaritan did.