Homilies

15th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN

THE PARABLE of the Good Samaritan is one of the best known short stories told by Jesus. This story has made the listeners reflect and rethink their own ideas of who their neighbor is.  It is quite interesting that a Samaritan proved to be the real neighbor, considering that the Samaritans were regarded by the Jews as pagans and unclean.

The gospel passage began with a scholar approaching Jesus and asked him what should be done in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus answered him: “You shall love the Lord your God and love your neighbor.” It appears that this scholar has no problem with the first commandment. But he was not certain with the second one, thus, he asked Jesus again, “Who is my neighbor?” And there Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan for the scholar’s further reflections.

Let us take some important points in the parable. The center of the story is a man who fell victim to robbers. He was stripped, beaten, and was left half-dead along the road. Now, there are different responses to the mentioned persons who passed by.

First, there was mention of a priest, and then a Levite. Both have the same responses. When they saw the man lying on the road, they passed by on the opposite side. It is understandable that these two men had done nothing toward the victim and instead passed on the other side of the road because they are prevented from touching the half-dead person, perhaps full of blood and wounds. These priests follow the strict rules or laws of purity. Touching the dead person or half-dead person would make them unclean and thus, would exclude them from religious service in the Temple.

It is so sad that their kind of worship was not inspired by the love of neighbor but by religious duty. As such, they are far from being human, and their relationship with others or neighbors is inhuman. It was a relationship devoid of mercy and love. This kind of relationship can happen anywhere. In the workplace, we can see bosses whose relationship with their subordinates as inhuman. Subordinates are being treated as robots or animals, and not human beings.

Second, after a priest and a Levite, there came a Samaritan traveler. In contrast to the response of a priest and a Levite, this man was moved with compassion at what he had seen. He approached the victim, bandaged his wounds, and brought him to an inn. When he left the place, he even instructed the innkeeper to “take care of him.” Such as great show of love and compassion of a man! Although the victim appears as a stranger, he came to care for him.

The Samaritan traveler was able to do it because, unlike the Jewish priest and Levite, love of neighbor is above religious duty. Mercy and compassion to the person in need is always looked at as something urgent. Certainly, the Samaritan traveler must have a personal business to another town, but he managed to help first the victim. He set aside his own business at the moment because helping the victim was a matter of life and death.

The parable is a good point for reflection especially now that we live in a different world.  In the provinces, neighborliness is still considered that important. But in urban areas, people live their life as if they don’t have neighbors at all. It is a “to each his own" thing. The houses can be too close to each other, but the relationship toward one another is rather remote. Neighbors are actually “nobodies”; they unimportant. Similarly, the world of internet, on the one hand, makes people close to each other, but if insensitivity comes to the picture, it also makes people far from each other.

The key to eternal life is love of God and love of neighbor. The second commandment demands mercy and compassion to people in need, like the Good Samaritan. In the final analysis, the Good Samaritan is Jesus himself who came to save humanity from its miserable condition, and healed our wounds by dying on the cross. He is full of love; he is full of compassion.

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