Today we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told the scholar of the law to justify who his neighbor was.
I think we all have a concept of who a Good Samaritan is.
Someone who shows mercy to another out of the goodness of their heart.
Has someone been a Good Samaritan to you?
When my wife and I were first married we sure did.
We were on our way to a ski trip in Northen Michigan on New Years Day.
We had left West Lafayette, Indiana in the late afternoon on a rainy day.
By the time we crossed the Michigan border the rain turned to sleet.
About a half hour later it started lightly snowing and then really started to come down as a heavy snowfall
Since it was New Years Day there were not too many cars on road, thank the Lord.
The road was now really becoming slick, and the dual lane straight highway turned into a single lane windy road.
I was going a bit too fast into a curse and our car spun off the road landing in a snowbank.
Neither of us were hurt, except for my pride, but there was no way we were getting out without some help.
We were in a very remote and I walked back to a house about a half mile back, while my wife stayed in the car.
There was not any cell phones forty year ago.
Just when I was ready to knock on the door of the house to ask for help, I heard our car horn.
A man driving a truck had saw our car was stuck.
He stopped, connected some chains to our car’s bumper and pulled it out of the snowbank, just about the time I returned to the car.
My wife and I were very grateful, and we offered something for his trouble.
He turned down any compensation saying he was happy to do so, and hoped
someone would help him out if he ever got into a similar situation.
Isn’t that what any of us would like if we were in a difficult situation?
We were fortunate to have the help of Good Samaritan.
In Jesus time, the words “good” and “Samaritan” would not have ever been used together.
The Jewish people had a disdain for Samaritans as they were mixed a breed of exiled Jews who had intermarried with a culture who worshipped pagan gods.
The Samaritans did not worship God in the Jerusalem Temple and the Jews would have nothing to do with them.
A good Jew would not consider a Samaritan as their neighbor as they were thought of as “good for nothing”.
So, after the Jewish scholar of the law answered Jesus correctly about what was necessary for eternal life, which was to love God and your neighbor as yourself, Jesus decided to test him on who he thought was his neighbor.
Jesus then tells the parable of the Samaritan as being the one who helped the man who was robbed and beaten, rather than the priest or Levites.
In his culture the Priest and Levites were the religious leaders.
They were supposed to be the ones that were supposed to be close to God.
But their concern for purity laws prevented them from loving their neighbor.
They were concerned about themselves, and not for the man who was robbed and beaten.
The Samaritan, who were supposed to be far from God, was the one who truly was the neighbor to the robber’s victim because of the mercy shown in caring for him.
He was considered a neighbor because of his concern for the other and not just himself.
The Jewish scholar’s perception of who was a neighbor, was changed by Jesus’ challenge.
This parable is for to challenge us as well.
If we want to gain eternal life, we must love both God and our neighbor.
Are we doing both?
Do we provide mercy to others because they are in need, or because we get something out of it.
Are there those we avoid others like the priests or Levites because of our faith.
Our faith should be the catalyst for us to show our love for others, not to avoid helping other.
To show love for our neighbor, we need to look beyond ourselves and be willing to sacrifice for the love of another, like the Good Samaritan, without expecting something in return.
I was grateful for the Good Samaritan that helped my wife and I in the snowstorm early in our marriage.
He gave me a good example early in my adult life of being there for others, not expecting anything in return, taking care of us as he would like to be treated if in a similar situation.
As we continue with the Eucharist, may it give us the grace to love our neighbors as ourselves, so we can inherit eternal life.
