15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 10:25-37
When I was still a seminarian, I was in Surigao City, a city northeast of Mindanao Island in the Philippines and one day as I was walking around a corner a car nearly sideswiped me. I nearly fell over and a worried woman caught me in time and asked me how I was. I told her I was all right and appreciated her concern. When I saw her face, she was wearing a cloth that covered her hair. She was a Muslim. And I appreciated that she was concerned even if I’m not a Muslim.
The gospel for today is all about an attempt of an expert of the law to test Jesus. But the answer that he and everybody who was listening received was totally unexpected. At first, it was just a simple question: How to attain eternal life? When he answered it correctly, perhaps he wanted to challenge Jesus and also to impress those who were listening to this discussion he asked, “Who is then my neighbour?”
Then Jesus told them a parable which was very close to the heart of his listeners. Most of his listeners would have known or even have experienced the difficulty of travelling in Palestine during those days and perhaps even now. A traveller got robbed and beaten up and was left half-dead. Then three people came up travelling on the same road. First, a priest who upon seeing the person went to the other side. We might think that it was a cruel and selfish act of a priest who was not willing to help. But the priest may have had a good excuse in not doing so. The priest might be on his way for an appointment to meet someone who may need his services and as a priest he must keep himself pure and clean. In the Jewish religion, touching a dead person would render one unclean. And for this priest, he may have thought that he couldn’t afford to go back to Jerusalem to do the purification ritual if this person turned out to be dead already. The second traveller was a Levite. A Levite is a member of the priestly clan and he may be less than a priest but he had some responsibilities in the upkeep of the temple and could perform some rituals as well. The Levite refused to help, perhaps with the same reason as the priest but also he was maybe thinking that if the priest who is higher than him did not bother to help, then why should he. Then finally, to the shock of everyone who was listening, Jesus said that a Samaritan passed by and was moved with compassion. For many Jews, they thought the words compassion and Samaritan couldn’t exist in the same sentence. For many Jews, they think that nothing good could possibly come out of Samaria because of the centuries of animosity between these two nations. So the Samaritan, looked at the victim, most probably not even recognising whether he was a Samaritan or a Jew then he poured wine and oil on his wound and bandaged them and put them on his animal and went to a local inn and cared for him. Then, in another unthinkable act, he instructed the owner of the inn to take care of him and he gave the owner some money with the promise of giving if needed.
If we think though that what the Samaritan did was an extraordinary act of kindness to the victim, there is definitely more to it than that. The Samaritan was also risking a lot by helping. The victim, upon getting well, might become angry with him because a Samaritan helped him. The Samaritan was also risking his life because he didn’t know if the robbers were still in the area waiting for another victim like him.
Now, the question comes back to us, “Who is our neighbour?” For many of us like the Jews of old, the answer would be my family, or maybe if we want to be generous, my extended family and the people living in my neighbourhood. But what Jesus is saying is that our neighbour should be anybody who needs our help. When Jesus means anybody, it means anybody, whether they are our family, friends and acquaintances or the stranger, enemy, someone of a different race or even from a different religion or those who have no faith at all. Our neighbour could also be people that don’t share our own beliefs and convictions, they may be conservatives or members of the LGBTI community. For Jesus, it doesn’t matter, our neighbours are those who need our help.
Are we willing to fulfil this mandate of Jesus not only to the lawyer but to all of us? Are we willing to risk our reputation by helping people who are shunned by society with the possibility of being shunned ourselves?
Following Jesus is not easy for we are asked to love those people that are not loved and to be with people who society has rejected. But if we do that then our place in his kingdom is not only guaranteed but it is assured.