Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“And who is my neighbor?” Lk: 10:29
Is there a more pertinent question in America today than this:
Who is my neighbor?
Sadly, we are a very divided people. We are a nation torn apart.
Perhaps like never before, we – a country which prides itself on being a “Christian nation” – needs to carefully and prayerfully ponder the answer to the question posed to Jesus in today’s universally acclaimed story of the Good Samaritan:
“And who is my neighbor?”
This is a central question in the church today, as well as in our entire society. It’s a question that is asked in conversations around our immigration policy. It’s a question often raised in our discussion of race or sexual identity. It’s a question that is pondered in interreligious and ecumenical relationships. And certainly, it’s a question frequently addressed in the political sphere, especially during this election year and during this time after the Roe v. Wade decision.
As the Jesuit columnist, Fr. Thomas Reese, asks in so challenging a way in a recent article in the National Catholic Reporter, “yes, the Republicans finally delivered on their promise to reverse Roe,” he writes, “but in every other way is this Supreme Court decision making the world more hospitable to life”?
For example, he writes:
“Stuffing the U.S. Supreme Court with conservative justices has set the stage for a string of victories for corporations that do not want the government telling them what to do. Regulations governing fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals, food safety, energy conservation, civil rights, public health and every other aspect of life will be more easily challenged by corporate lawyers with the court.”
“In Catholic teaching,” Fr. Reese, states, “being pro-life means concern about all life, from the womb to the tomb. Now that the bishops and other anti-abortion Catholics have won their fight against Roe, will they embrace a more consistent ethic of life? Will they live up to the extensive social justice agenda they espouse on paper” – the very ones that “support social programs for health care – housing, food assistance, jobs, daycare – to help mothers care for their children”, the very same ones, for example, that Jesus advocates so radically in today’s Gospel message?
And what exactly is that message?
To begin with, it’s important to remember that Jesus uses a story to make his point, not a lecture or a treatise complete with footnotes.
And, notice too, that it’s not just any story, but one specifically designed to be delivered to someone who thinks he/she has life all figured out – a scholar of the Law, a legalist.
Or today’s equivalent of a Supreme Court Justice?
Jesus goes so far as to make a Samaritan the centerpiece of the story. This in itself would be startling to the two Jewish legalists in this story because there was a long and deep legal animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews.
From the Jewish point of view, how could it be possible that someone from Samaria – someone judged by Jews at that time to represent the vilest form of human nature – could ever be the centerpiece of a story about the most remarkable kind of mercy and kindness?
And yet, Jesus, nonetheless gives a detailed rendition of how two high ranking Jews, filled with the conviction that they represent a manifestation of the Holy Law of Moses and God, exhibit total disdain for a man who is obviously writhing in terrible pain.
These two holy men, these two legal scholars ignore him completely.
It is the dreaded and hated Samaritan who recognizes the man’s pain. It is the despised Samaritan who immediately reaches out to him, sees how deeply wounded he is and, by using 15 verbs, Jesus describes him as one who “pours oil and wine over his wounds;”“bandages them;”“lifts him up on his own animal;” “takes him to an inn and cares for him;”“takes out two silver coins and gives them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him.’” And, as if this were not enough, the Samaritan then says to the innkeeper: “’If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’”
Jesus then asks the Jewish legal scholars an inevitable question – one that each of us must answer as well:
“Which of these three … was neighbor to the robber’s victim?
Even the Jewish scholar of the Law cannot miss the point. The “neighbor” is the “one who treated him with mercy.”
Mercy
This is the answer that changes the entire worldview of the lawyer. No long lecture is needed. No elaborate definition is mandatory. No legal scholarship is required.
The story tells it all:
Mercy is not concerned about the color of someone’s skin or their sexual identity or their economic status or their political beliefs or their religious distinctiveness.
Mercy is what God shows to each one of us. Mercy is what we are to show to each other.
“Be merciful as your heavenly father is merciful.” Lk. 6:36
Today’s gospel account begins with this question:
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Today’s gospel answers this question:
Be merciful.
Boundless mercy is not only the answer to our life hereafter. It is the only resolution to the dilemma of what will ultimately heal the terrible divisions we are presently experiencing.
We are all in this together. We need to be and have “neighbors” like the Good Samaritan. It’s what our “Christian” country has to remember and take to heart if we are ever to heal the appalling divide that is literally tearing us apart.
Be merciful, Jesus pleads with us.
Like the Good Samaritan was.
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
NOTE:
According to the Gun Violence Archive, the shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill. that left six people dead and dozens injured was one of fourteen mass shootings over the long Labor Day weekend! 14!!
Mass shootings, where four or more people – not including the shooter – are injured or killed, have averaged more than one per day so far this year. Not a single week in 2022 has passed without at least four mass shootings!
The toll is immense! Mass shootings this year alone have killed 343 people and injured 1391 more through July 4th!!
The lesson of the Good Samaritan – the plea for mercy – appears to be nowhere in sight in our majority “Christian” nation.
