15th Sunday of Ordinary Time (14.07.13)
Today, we hear again Christ’s immortal parable about the Good Samaritan.
Why did the priest and the Levite not stop to help this poor unfortunate?
As John says in his Gospel: “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”, so the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. The racial difference made for religious difference. Each group’s loyalty to its own tradition served to nourish its hostility towards the other group.
A neighbour then was someone within the boundaries of your own racial and religious circle. To love outsiders, while rejecting their beliefs, was not even a consideration in that tradition.
Therefore, how stunning to discover that the hero of the hour, who came to the aid of the wounded man by the roadside, who happened to be a Jew, was no less than a despised Samaritan – one who is publicly cursed in synagogues; one whose evidence is not acceptable in a court of law; a complete nobody! Yet, he is the one Jesus holds up as the “neighbour” in the kingdom of God. Yes, he is the one who went beyond the limits of religion to extend the boundary of compassion, and to a so-called enemy too!
Through this parable, Jesus teaches us that should tradition invite us to despise other people for whatever reason, then we must be disloyal to that tradition. If loving our neighbour means being disloyal to our tradition, then disloyalty itself becomes a virtue. The ultimate loyalty is LOVE. If the Gospel does not liberate, then Christ died in vain. He died so that everyone could have life in His Name.
Perhaps the priest and Levite were afraid of the possible consequences for themselves, thinking “what will happen to me if I stop!”, whereas the question in the Samaritan’s mind was: “what will happen to this wounded man if I don’t stop!”
Getting involved is a messy business It disrupts your life. You never know the amount of trouble you are letting yourself in for, if you decide to answer a cry for help. It is much safer, and far easier to close your heart and go quietly by on the other side of the road.
How often we define a good neighbour as “one who always minds his own business”!
This parable is relevant for each of us today. How many people lie wounded by the roadside of life! Their wounds are not always visible. People – even in our own neighbourhood, street, or household – can be wounded in spirit, depressed, redundant, lonely, forgotten, despised, ostracised; and as little as a kind word or gesture or a listening ear could lift them up. Are we too busy or preoccupied to notice, or maybe we feel sorry for them but think; “ it’s not my business”?
As the old proverb says: “a drop of help is worth an ocean of pity.”