Reckoning

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Stephen M. King
October 31, 2025

“…who is my neighbor? He who showed mercy…Then go and do likewise” (Luke 10:29b; 37b)

The Parable of the Good Samaritan depicts the heart of what public service should be. Shunned by the Jewish people, the Samaritans were viewed as a mixed race “who practiced an impure” religion. Yet Jesus, through his ministry, did not exclude the Samaritans but embraced them not as a renegade Jewish sect but as human beings. Whether it was the woman in John 4 or the leper in Luke 17, Jesus did not reject and certainly not vilify anyone based on faith, politics, or worldview.

The Jewish lawyer, who was not so much interested in the truth as he was in demonstrating that Jesus was a hypocrite, challenged Him to explain the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself.” He asked sarcastically, “Who is your neighbor?” Is it he who agrees with your political party’s platform or promotes your ideological view of the world? No, declared Jesus, it is he “who needs mercy and justice,” such as the immigrant seeking legal assistance, the opioid addict in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, the gang banger’s mother on Chicago’s South Side who pleads for city officials to do something, or the rural Appalachian poor who subsist rather than live. The true public service Samaritan addresses the need that is most acute, not the one that generates the most public attention.

In I Was Hungry (2019), Jeremy Everett, a community worker in San Antonio, TX, who by living and working with the poor, addressed the absence of sufficient quality and quantity of food to the poor. He and his organization, Texas Hunger Initiative (THI), worked cooperatively with local governments, nonprofit and faith-based organizations to meet the hunger need head on, putting themselves and resources on the frontline. Everett puts it this way, “…by working together to build trust and collaborating to address hunger in communities we will recognize our common humanity and put aside the hateful rhetoric that is pervasive in our nation.” Commitment to public service is not supposed to be simply the rational application of rules and procedures to combat problems or address solutions for the problems. It is the work of compassionate public servants who see themselves less as government officials and more as the spiritual embodiment of the Good Samaritan.

In Creating the Administrative State (1998), Richard Stillman argued that the modern state was not fashioned exclusively by Weberian rational bureaucratic processes and leadership but by the life and work of what he terms “moral reformers.” They were men and women such as Jane Addams and Richard Childs who through their “strong moral idealism,” which was chiseled from their roots in the “intensely Protestant, small-town America” they were raised in and fashioned through scholarly achievements, practical applications and devotion to framing administrative systems and processes, were committed to serving the public.

Today, public problems are multiplied in size, cost and consequences compared to decades past. As William Eggers and Don Kettl note in their excellent public management treatise titled Bridgebuilder (2023), the “vending-machine model” is dated and no longer reflects the best way to solve complex public problems. The answer, claim the authors, is for complex collaboration between multiple teams, agencies and programs with “…bridgebuilders who bring together different parts of government and tap into other sectors of society,” such as nongovernmental organizations including nonprofits and faith-based entities as well as private sector entities.

According to Eggers and Kettl, a major missing ingredient is the lack of “trustworthy networks.” Their answer for reestablishing trust in government and developing a trustworthy government including people and programs is to build and sustain a system of “cross-sector collaboration.” The authors rightly argue, at least partially so, that reinstating trust in government begins with proper measurement of the problem and achieving beneficial results. Whether it is improving VA services or enhancing the development and implementation of the national census each decade, networks of stakeholders are critical for bridging the gap between the government, a program and social need.

But bridgebuilders, i.e., public servants who desire to reinstate the public’s trust in government, must not be viewed primarily as technical experts but as ethical leaders and administrators who are willing to combat a problem at its moral core. Public servants must be ethically committed and morally motivated to see the problem as a human issue, not solely as a political or technical one.

The practice of public service is at a reckoning point. Our job as professionals and advocates is not only to roll up our sleeves and do the dirty work of public service but to do so ethically, fairly and without prejudice, particularly to those we personally disagree with politically and ideologically. Like the Good Samaritan, Jeremy Everett and countless thousands like him embrace the values that express the commonality of humanity such as acceptance, mercy and justice over the divisiveness and vitriol that currently fills the public space. As public servants we can do no less.

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Author: Stephen M. King is Professor of Government at Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA. He teaches undergraduate courses in American politics, state and local government and public policy and has taught graduate courses in public policy analysis and ethical leadership and administration. He frequently publishes on the topics of ethics and public administration and leadership and spirituality in the public workplace. He was President of the Hampton Roads Chapter of ASPA (AY24-25) and he served on the Advisory Council for SEIGov, ASPA (AY21-24). His latest book is Ethical Public Leadership: Foundation, Organization, and Discovery (New York: Routledge, 2023). Contact him at [email protected].

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