GOOD SAMARITAN: TRUE FAITH IS IN LIVING CHRISITAN ACTION OF EMPATHY AND SYMPATHY FOR OTHERS
Indeed, the story of the good Samaritan is a summary of how true faith is living Christian action of empathy and sympathy for others, especially the downtrodden. A Christian is an empathetic person who can feel, connect and relate to the painful situations or experiences of others. He is one who easily moves with compassion and pity towards the needy and helpless.
The inability to feel, connect or relate with others, especially others has no justification in Christianity. A Christian can never have a stony heart or emotion and justify it as being a “principled person” who he or is heartless towards others.
True Christianity lies in how we treat those around us or whoever crosses our path. There is no room for cruelty in the name of God or religious justifications. The law of Christianity is love first before rites and rituals. God is never a sadist and his followers cannot be as such as well.
OUR THEME
The summary of this Sunday readings remain us fundamentally, that through loving God in our living neighbours: brothers and sisters, we become good neighbours and inherit the promise of eternal life.
In a nutshell, the readings of today raise our consciousness beyond religious duties to a spiritual living of what God want from us (Deut. 30:10-14) and what He did for us in Christ Jesus (Col.1:15-20).
What does the parable mean for us here and now? Jesus used it to illustrate the most important quality he wants in his followers. It was his answer to a specific question: “Who is my neighbour?” The answer is that everyone without exception must be treated with love and respect.
FIRST READING: DEUTERONOMY. 30:10-14
The first reading reminds us that God´s commandments are not just written documents in the Bible, but that they are also written in our hearts so that we may obey them and inherit eternal life.
The first reading: Deuteronomy 30:10-14 explained: that Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan in the course of a discussion about the Law which occurred in the context of Jesus’ fateful journey toward Jerusalem and his coming death.
Jesus dared to ask people to go beyond the Law of Moses, and that is one of the things that got him in so much trouble. To prepare us for that lesson, the Church selects from the Hebrew Scriptures a description of the Law that captures its greatness.
In summary, the law of Christianity is love first before rites and rituals. Hence, Moses urges the people of Israel to hear the voice of God from the Law and to keep His Commandments. He tells us that God is very near to us – in the neighbours, we shall encounter each day this week. When we act as neighbours to them, we act as neighbours to God Himself.
SECOND READING: COLOSSIANS 1:15-20
In this passage, Paul says two great things about Jesus, both of which are in answer to the Christological problem of the Gnostics. The Gnostics had said that Jesus was merely one among many intermediaries and that, however great he might be, he was only a partial revelation of God.
1. Paul says that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col.1:15). When Paul uses this word, he lays it down that Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God. To see what God is like, we must look at Jesus. He perfectly represents God to men in a form which they can see and know and understand.
2. The other word Paul uses in Col.1:19. says that Jesus is the “pleroma” God. Pleroma in Greeks means fullness, completeness. He is the firstborn of all creation (Col.1:15). It was by the Son that all things were created (Col.1:16). It was for the Son that all things were created (Col.1:17)
3. Paul uses the strange phrase: “In him, all things hold together.” This means that not only is the Son the agent of creation at the beginning and the goat of creation in the end, but between the beginning and the end, during time as we know it, it is he who holds the world together.
4. Paul sets out in verse 18 what Jesus Christ is to the Church, and he distinguishes four great facts in that relationship. (i) He is the head of the body, that is, of the Church. He is the beginning of the Church. The world is the creation of Christ, and the Church is the new creation of Christ.
In the second reading, St. Paul assures us that, Christ Jesus is the “visible image of the invisible God,” so our neighbours are the visible image of Christ living in our midst.
THE GOSPEL: LUKE. 10:25-37.
In the gospel, Jesus invites the self-righteous teacher of the law and all of us to a higher consciousness beyond mere observance of religious rules and regulations or participating in religious rites like the priest and Levite.
Jesus concretely demonstrated to us in the story of the Good Samaritan who a neighbour or a brother or a sister is.
THE CHARACTERS IN THE STORY OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
(a) There was the traveller. He was a reckless and foolhardy character. People seldom attempted the Jerusalem to Jericho road alone if they were carrying goods or valuables. Seeking safety in numbers, they travelled in convoys or caravans. This man had no one but himself to blame for the plight in which he found himself.
(b) There was the priest. He hastened past. No doubt he was remembering that he who touched a dead man was unclean for seven days (Num.19:11). He could not be sure but he feared that the man was dead; to touch him would mean losing his turn of duty in the Temple, and he refused to risk that. He set the claims of ceremonial above those of charity. The Temple and its liturgy meant more to him than the pain of man.
(c) There was the Levite. He seems to have gone nearer to the man before he passed on. The
bandits were in the habit of using decays. One of their numbers would act the part of a wounded man; and when some unsuspecting traveller stopped over him, the others would rush upon him and overpower him. The Levite was a man whose motto was, “Safety first.” He would take no risks to help anyone else.
(d) There was the Samaritan. The listeners would expect that with his arrival the villain had arrived. He may not have been racially a Samaritan at all. The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans and yet this man seems to have been a kind of commercial traveller who was a regular visitor to the inn.
In Jn.8:48 the Jews call Jesus a Samaritan. The name was sometimes used to describe a man who was a heretic and a breaker of the ceremonial law. Perhaps this man was a Samaritan in the sense of being one whom all orthodox good people despised.
JESUS’ ANSWER INVOLVES THREE THINGS.
(i) We must help a man even when he has brought his trouble on himself, as the traveller had
done.
(ii) Any man of any nation who is in need is our neighbour. Our help must be as wide as the love of God.
(iii) The help must be practical and not consist merely in feeling sorry. No doubt the priest and
the Levite felt a pang of pity for the wounded man, but they did nothing. Compassion, to be real, must issue in deeds.
GOOD SAMARITAN: GOOD NEIGHBOUR
The parable of the good Samaritan is a familiar story to all, yet it is a story with a deep and radical interpretation that challenges us and unlocks the racial, political, cultural, ethnical, social, and religious biases and boundaries that polarized our world and society. The fundamental call to us is to: BE A GOOD NEIGHBOUR ON THE ROAD TO THE JERICHO OF OUR LIVES.
1. Let us remember that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho passes right through our home, parish, school and workplace.
2. It might as well be the road through our thoughts, words and actions where we engage physically, verbally or mentally with the other who is not like us.
3. We may find our spouse, children or parents, neighbours, colleagues, etc. lying “wounded” by bitter words, scathing criticisms, or by more blatant forms of verbal, emotional or physical abuse.
4. Hence, Jesus invites us to show our love to others, in our own home, in school, in the workplace, and the neighbourhood, as the Good Samaritan did.
5. Let us check to see if we are good neighbours. We become good neighbours when we are people of generosity, kindness, and mercy toward all who are suffering.
6. We are good neighbours also when we can relate, feel and connect to the needy.
7. Our sincere smile, a cheery greeting, an encouraging word of appreciation, and a heartfelt “thank you” can all work wonders for a suffering soul.
8. Let us allow the “Good Samaritans” to touch our lives. Let us be willing to touch, or be touched by, persons we have once despised.
9. For some of us, it may be persons of another colour or race; for others, it may mean persons of a different political persuasion.
10. Let us accept the invitation to be loving and merciful to our enemies. This means people we hate, as well as those who hate us. It is an invitation for people of all times to love their enemies–to love those they have previously hated.
11. Let us pray that the Spirit of the Living God may melt us, mould us and use us so that there will no longer be even one person who is untouchable or outside the boundaries of compassion.
Furthermore, if we do not show love to the neighbour whom we see, then no matter what commandments we keep, what ritual sacrifices we join in, as did the priest and Levite in the parable, we become incapable of loving the God we cannot see.
If we join in the Eucharistic meal and receive God’s Son into our hearts, we must first cleanse our hearts of hatred, bitterness, and ill-will, because the God we receive in this sacrament is love.
In essence, Jesus challenges us to go beyond the ordinary to do the extraordinary like the Samaritan who defied all odds and took all risks to be a neighbour to an unknown stranger.
THE QUESTION: WHY ARE YOU ALL HERE?
There was this beggar who begged in between a church and a shopping mall night and day. Usually, he stayed in front of the shopping mall from Monday to Saturday and on Sunday in front of the church. In a shopping mall, many will go in and come out with a lot of goodies to take home. Many too, do their shopping before or after church service on Sundays or weekends. So it was evident that the majority in this rich neighbourhood who go shopping were also parishioners of the church.
Sadly, while they go about shopping and worshipping, the majority never took notice of this humble beggar.
One Sunday, while staying in front of the church, he heard the priest read the story of the Good Samaritan. Upon finishing the gospel and about to begin the homily, the beggar interrupted the priest indicating he has something to say.
Many in the congregation tried to stop him from reaching the altar or stop him from speaking, but he fought his way through and grabbed the microphone from the priest.
The priest, then allow him to say want he wanted to say and so the beggar catching his breath after the struggle looked at the congregation disappointingly and asked them: WHY ARE YOU ALL HERE? Afterwards, he handed over the mic to the priest and walked away.
Everyone in the church was astonished at the beggar´s question and wondered what that could mean. It was then, that it dawned on the priest that the beggar´s question was the challenge of the gospel of the day.
OUR PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, I John 4:8 indicates to us that GOD IS LOVE. Help us to see, cherish and love always and everywhere the invisible image of God in You living in our brothers and sisters, especially in the less privileged, afflicted, marginalized, oppressed and abused by human actions and words.
Lord, help us to be spiritual with higher consciousness to be neighbours to the lonely, sick, afflicted, needy and strangers than to be religious with a minimalist attitude towards Christian charity. Amen!
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