The one who showed mercy ~ A Reflection on the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Deu 30:10-14

Ps 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37

Col 1:15-20

Lk 10:25-37

In the first reading from Deuteronomy, Moses is trying to make the Israelites understand that God is not someone remote and far away from them.  Their God, our God, is always near to us... even in our mouths and in our hearts.  He has compassion and mercy for us; and wills that we love him with our whole being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

In the Gospel reading from Luke, we learn just who our neighbor is...  It is easy to count our neighbor as someone we like or care about...  someone we can feel comfortable with... someone we can feel a connection to.  But in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is showing us that our neighbor may be someone who we would never ordinarily associate with... someone who needs help but is distasteful to us... someone we want to walk away from and forget about.

The robbers' victim was that person.  Who could tell who this injured man might be.  His clothes had been torn away; he was bloody and beaten.  The priest who passed him by might have considered helping but then realized that he would have to purify himself when he reached the temple.  The Levite had other things to do as well and so passed by on the other side.

But then the outcast of society, the Samaritan, came, saw and stopped.  He knew what it was like to be despised and ignored...  and thus, he felt compassion for this victim.... The Samaritan did everything he could to help the unfortunate man.  He had no qualms about touching someone who might have hated him in other circumstances.  He didn't worry that this victim might accuse him of being one of the robbers.  No, instead of walking away, the Samaritan became the good neighbor that Jesus spoke about.

How many times have we walked away?  



~ The Good Samaritan by Chris Koelle