ATLANTA — Peacemakers do not stay in the safe places. They go to where the war is, to where the tensions are, the Rev. Mark Lomax, keynote speaker, told more than 100 Presbyterians meeting here for the 2009 Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference.

The peacemaking gathering is one of 10 conferences meeting jointly as part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Big Tent event.

Lomax, pastor of First African Presbyterian Church and interim dean of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in Atlanta, put an urban-contemporary spin on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10.

The parable applies to all “who get jacked on the Jericho road of life,” who are “wounded by the attitudes of people who see something in them they don’t like,” Lomax said. Many of us take detours to avoid the Jericho roads, to avoid encounters with “people of questionable pedigree.”

“I wonder how often we drive by people lying in the middle of the road and refuse to stop?” he said.

Jesus told this well-known story in response to a lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” “It almost reminds me of some of the encounters we have as Presbyterians,” Lomax said.

The lawyer just wanted to be affirmed by Jesus. He did not want to be challenged to do more. Like the lawyer, when Jesus tells us to do something difficult, “we try to nitpick,” Lomax said. “We don’t really like what we’re hearing, so we ask a question.”

He said he thought the priest and Levite really wanted to do something to help the wounded man in Jesus’ parable. “What prevented them from stopping? It was fear.”

Conference participants responded to Lomax’s words in pairs and small groups. They discussed their own neighborhoods and shared answers to the question: How has someone unexpectedly been a neighbor to you?

Speaking later, Lomax suggested, “Perhaps the capacity to love your neighbor comes from loving God.” And how do we love God? “By being who God created us to be.”

He added, “When I’m living like that, I am not a popular kind of guy. I say and do things people don’t approve of.”

Lomax concluded with a challenge to live authentically: “I often wonder if we are the same people when we leave the church parking lot as we are inside the church.”

Eva Stimson is editor of Presbyterians Today magazine.