Pastor's Message

 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                      “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”     Matthew 22:37-40

          “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal Life?”

           A Lawyer in the Gospel today asks a very fundamental human question; He expresses the concern that worries many, about human wellbeing after this earthly life.

          Luke, the Evangelist, however, expressed that the Lawyer, a master in the Word of God as written in the Law, asked this question to Jesus in order to test him.

          Being a Scripture scholar himself, the lawyer knew how the Bible answered his question, but he wanted to see what this prophet from Galilee, would say.

          Jesus initial response referred the lawyer simply to the Scripture, which he, lawyer, knew quite well; “What is written in the Law?” “How do you read it?”

         The Scribe gave his answer by combining Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, and was right on target: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

        Jesus’ teaching on this question is no different from that of the Torah, the entire meaning of which is contained in this double commandment. So, Jesus answered the Scribe; “You have answered correctly, do this and you will live.” But the learned man, had to justify himself. “And who is my neighbor?” He asked Jesus.  _

       The Lawyer knew what this meant, “A fellow countrymen; a member of one’s people.” But if this were so, what about the many foreigners that were among them? Were they to be loved as neighbors too?

       Jesus answered his question with a Parable of a man on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, whom robbers beat and stripped off everything, living him for dead on the roadside. A Priest and Levite, claimed experts in the Law and its practice, who knew about salvation and were its professed spiritual servants, came along, but passed by without stopping, to help one of their own, stripped and apparently dead; “For fear of becoming defiled!” (Jerome. p. 702.)

        A Samaritan, someone, who Christ’s Jewish listeners would have despised and hated, leave alone considering to be a neighbor, stopped and generously helped the wounded. Seeing the wounded in such a dare state, we read, “He was moved with compassion.” “His heart was wretched open.” And he, himself, felt compelled to act and acted perfectly a neighbor, to the assaulted.

        Jesus then asked the Scribe; “Which of the three in your opinion was neighbor to the robbers’ Victim?” To which the lawyer answered, “The One who treated him with mercy.” Notice that the lawyer would not bring himself to say “the Samaritan.”

        The Samaritan, the foreigner, heedless of any question of enmity, social, cultural or religious bias or dangers, made himself the neighbor. Pope Benedict, in his book Jesus of Nazareth, raises the understanding of this Parable a notch higher; He explains, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho as an Image of Human history; and the half-dead man lying by the side of it as image of Humanity (P. 200)

         Human Beings after the fall of Adam and Eve lay alienated, estranged and helpless by the roadside of history, needing God’s redeeming Love. God himself became Man’s Neighbor in Christ Jesus, so that healed in Love, we could ourselves become neighbors to one another.

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