Time of welcoming

Posted: 15th August 2007

The Good Samaritan (Lk 10,25-37 To welcome like Christ)

A. Some reminders:
1. The priest:
He is the one supervising the sacrifices, offered to God in the temple, so that they will be perfect. He is also the religious person-in-charge for the people. He shows the way to follow.

2. The Levite:
He helps the priest in his task: he cleans the temple, see to it that people respect the rules...
According to the Jewish law, they have no rights to touch a dead body stained by blood.. .that explains the fact that they don't stop...

3. The Samaritan: it is an inhabitant of Samaria...
In 721 before JC, the Assyrians lay siege to Samaria (the capital city of the Kingdom of Israel). A large portion of the population is massacred, another partion is exiled. The Assyrians install on the conquered territory pagan populations (that do not have the Jewish religion). These pagans learn to know God with the few Israelites that have not been deported. Although the Samaritans adopt the Law of Moses, the Jews refuse to let them enter the Temple of Jerusalem. At the time of Jesus, Jews and Samaritans do not see to eye with each other.

4. In summary

The priests and the Levites assure the smooth running of the Temple. One could think that they are near the Kingdom, near life with God. The Samaritan has no access to the Temple; one could think that he is far from the Kingdom of God. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus invites us to look further. The one who is nearest the Kingdom of God, is the one who is good with those who meet with difficulties (sufferings, misfortune, sickness, misery…); it is the one who feels compassion and who acts!

B. Commentaries
For Jesus, the important is to be near the one who suffers and that we meet (sometimes by chance) on our way...
To love my neighbor, it is then to love all those I meet on the way of my life and that need my help...
My neighbor can then be a friend, an enemy, a foreigner, a child, an elderly person, a poor woman. .

Never forget that to love is to act for the happiness of the other...It is easy to say: "I love you"; it is much more difficult to do acts of love, because love leads us very far...It brings us to forget ourselves, to be totally oriented toward the other, to spend for him, lavishly, without counting the cost, without thinking at what it will cost to us (in time, money, tiredness, in listening. . .)

How does the Samaritan of the parable behave himself?

If the latter would have been satisfied to stop along the way and would have said to this poor fellow soaked in his own blood: "My poor friend, how I am sorry for you! How did it happen? And good luck!" before continuing on his way, isnt it that all this would have been an irony or an insult? The Samaritan behaved differently: "He came near the wounded man, soothed the wounds of the man by pouring wine and oil; then placed him on his own mount and brought him to an inn to take care of him. The next day, he gave 2 pieces of silver to the innkeeper saying: "Take care of him; all you spend in surplus, I will pay you back when I return".

Having finished narrating his parable, Jesus told the doctor of the Law who had asked the question: "What do you think, which one of the three men (the Levite, the priest, the Samaritan) was the neighbor of this man fallen in the hands of the bandits?" Jesus makes an unexpected upheaval ofthe traditional concept of "neighbor".

The neighbor is the Samaritan, not the wounded man, as one could believe. This means that we do not need to passively wait for our neighbor to fall on us. It is up to us to be' ready, to be aware that he is there, and to be ready to discover him. The neighbor is the one that each one of us is called to become! The problem of the doctor of the Law seems to be turned upside down; of an abstract problem, we pass to a concrete problem.

Questions:

1. The question that one needs to ask is not: "Who is my neighbor?" but "Of whom can I be the neighbor, here and now?"

2. How do I behave when I meet someone who has problems? How do I act? What are the difficulties that I meet? What are my joys?

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

25 Then a teacher of the Law came and began putting Jesus to the test. And he said, "Master, what shall I do to receive eternal life?"

26 Jesus replied, "What is written in the Scripture? How do you understand it?"

27 The man answered, "It is written: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

28 Jesus replied, "What a good answer! Do this and you shall live."

29 The man wanted to keep up appearances, so he replied, "Who is my neighbor?"

30 Jesus then said, "There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him and went off leaving him half dead.

31 It happened that a priest was going along that road and saw the man, but passed by on the other side.

32 Likewise a Levite saw the and passed by on the other side

33 But a Samaritan, too, was going that way, and when he came upon the man, he was moved with compassion.

34 He went over to him and treated his wounds with oil and wine and wrapped them with bandages. Then he put him on his own mount and brought him to an inn where he took care of him.

35 The next day he had to set off, but he gave two silver coins to the innkeeper and told him: 'Take care of him and whatever you spend on him, I will repay when I come back.”

36 Jesus then asked, "Which of these three, do you think, made himself neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37 The teacher of the Law answered, "the one who had mercy on him." And Jesus said, "Go then and do the same."

Article Source: Bishops's House