15th Sunday in Ordinary Time ( C-cycle )
July 15, 2007
It is not very often that you can see a cat and a mouse getting along. Well, we can say the same thing about a Yankee and a Red Sox fan. Once during a game at Yankee stadium, a Red Sox and a Yankee fan got into an argument. Naturally, the argument was the fault of the Yankee fan. He shouted the first epithet, he threw the first punch and he threw the first beer can which hit the sox fan’s wife by mistake. What was the poor Red Sox fan to do but to respond to the affront to his dignity?
With one thing leading to another, the usher’s had to separate them. And not unexpected at Yankee Stadium, they ejected the sox fan from the game with accompanying boo’s from the crowd. The Sox fan had to watch the ninth inning from a bar across the stadium. The red sox lost that game, but the next day they evened the series.
On the third day as the Red Sox fan drove out of Yankee stadium flush with a series victory, he saw his adversary on the street corner with a flat tire and the hood of the car up. He pulled over, and despite his wife’s admonition, helped change the man’s tire and provided a battery charge as well. The two men shook hands and promised to meet again when the series moved next to
If you can believe this story, I’ve got a bridge for sale in the
Nevertheless, this is my modern version of the “Good Samaritan” story and it serves to illustrate the point that Jesus was trying to get across to us. It is a point that He made earlier when confronted by the rich young man in another gospel story. “Go” Jesus had told the young man who wanted to know what more to do besides obedience to the law, “sell all you have give it to the poor and then come and follow me”. And it is the point that he makes today in the often told story of the “Good Samaritan”.
In both these stories, Jesus seems to be telling us that it is not enough for us to just keep the law. We must go beyond it. It is not enough for us to just attend Mass, or to be well versed in scripture and the gospel; - we must also live it. We must give love.
For the moral law can be summed up in a simple sentence: Do Good and avoid Evil. They are the two sides of a single coin and they go together. Keeping the law helps us to fulfill one part of the coin; - avoiding evil. And it is the side that we tend to concentrate on. But loving one another helps us to complete the process; - For to love is to do “good”.
But how should we love? If we look closely at the story of the “Good Samaritan”, we will notice that the parable does not really answer the lawyer’s question “who is my neighbor?” Rather it ends by reversing it in asking: “Which of the three PROVED to be a neighbor to him who fell victim to the robbers?”
It is right here that the point of the parable lies. Our love must extend to all persons. For the command “You shall love your neighbor” does not mean that we may love some people but not others; rather it means: be a neighbor to another, don’t just indulge in general sentiments of kindness, but do concrete things for persons with concrete needs. Neighborliness is not a quality in other people; it is simply their claim on us.
And so when we encounter someone in need, we have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether the person is our neighbor or not; - We must jump into action and help; we must behave like a neighbor to them. This injunction is from Jesus himself who told us elsewhere to “Love one another, Do Good, to those who hate you”.
A sage one’s put this maxim in perspective. As he said, “Scripture tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.
The road from Jerusalem to Jericho where the robbers left their victim half- dead and where the good Samaritan took care of him, that road runs through each of our homes, our offices, our clubs, our classrooms and our church. All along that road are countless persons who have been slightly or seriously wounded in body or spirit.
The gospel today is calling us to stop and assist them. It is calling us to us to say nice something to them; it is calling us to do something to help them. It is calling us to be a good neighbor to them. Let us always remember, that if we have an unpleasant neighbor, the odds are, that they think they do as well. If a Yankee and a Red Sox fan can get along, we can be good neighbors even to our enemies.
God Bless you.