15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 15, 2007

by Reverend Deacon Lawrence A. St. Onge

Today’s first reading provides us with some insight into God’s law. When we hear the word “law” we may get many different images in our mind. Possibly the first thing that comes to mind is rules and regulations, restrictions and prohibitions, or policies that aim at limiting what we would actually rather do. For most of us, our experience of law is a negative one.  Our understanding and perspective of law is also probably colored by what our experience of authority figures has been. Before we can begin to understand God’s law, we need to come to grips with our own relationship with authority and law.

Laws give structure to our lives and to our communities, and few of us, I believe, would really prefer to live without them. It is important to realize that the law is made for people, and not people for the law. It is when people serve the laws instead of the other way around that trouble occurs. Jesus, we must remember, regularly broke the rules to help and rescue people, thereby demonstrating unequivocally that compassion always trumps law. That is why the first reading states: “For this command [law] I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you.” “It is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” In essence, it is stating that the law of God is not something that is imposed from “outside of us” but is found “within us.”

In today’s gospel, a scholar of the Jewish law steps up to test Jesus, and questions him about the requirements for gaining eternal life. It is important to note that his question of: “What must I do?”  hinges on the very telling word “do.”  When Jesus then refers this scholar to the Law, itself, in response to his question, he responds correctly, but then goes on to inquire of Jesus, but “Who is my neighbor?” It’s obvious from his question that the scholar is more interested in merely fulfilling the law than loving his neighbor. More often than not, it is easier and simpler for us to stay within the strict confines of right and wrong, than it is to get involved with real people in real need, which is sometimes messy in nature.

By his question: “Who is my neighbor?” the scholar of the law in today’s gospel expresses a desire for clarification: specifically, who is and who is not my neighbor. Obviously, he does not want to make the mistake of offering his charity unnecessarily. For him, “doing” is more important than “being.” He’d rather do what is obliged, than mirror the compassion and mercy of God; i.e. the love of God.

In today’s gospel, Jesus does not answer the scholar’s question, but instead tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan, which most of us know well. In the parable we hear about two reputed holy men, a priest and a Levite, who, in order to maintain religious cleanliness, as proscribed by the letter of the law, pass by a seriously injured man who was the victim of robbers. In fact they even cross over to the other side of the road to avoid him. Yes, they obeyed the law, but in reality, did not fulfill it. “Jesus said, elsewhere in the gospels, “I have not come to abolish the law; but to fulfill it.”

In contrast, a Samaritan, a member of the religious sect which was despised by the Jews and considered to be absolute sinners, is the one who stops and helps the poor victim. It is this despised one, the unclean one, the one who is rejected by the Jews, God’s chosen people, who shows he is in fact the true neighbor to the robbery victim.

Who is our neighbor? Jesus defines who they are throughout his teachings. Our neighbor is the poor one, the sick one, the powerless one, the street person, the illegal immigrant in need, the Muslim next door of whom we may be suspicious and untrusting. Our neighbor is the one crying out for justice at the door of the unfair judge, who is we, ourselves.

We are being challenged to move beyond our traditional or cultural way of life, beyond practicality and logic, so as to enter that place of risk where one puts oneself out for another unconditionally and without discrimination or undue regard for personal security. It is clear in today’s gospel that Jesus regarded such risky acts of love as genuine and concrete illustrations of the love that believers claim to have for God. A comprehensive love of God that finds its expression in one’s whole heart, soul, strength and mind is no love at all, unless, it is also expressed in love of neighbor, i.e. in love of  anyone in need.

St. Clement once wrote to the Church at Corinth: “…those who live in pious fear and in love are willing to endure torment rather than have their neighbor suffer; and they more willingly suffer their own condemnation than the loss of that harmony that has been so nobly and righteously handed down to us. For it is better for a man to confess his sins than to harden his heart.

As Moses states in today’s first reading, the command (or Law) of God is, after all, a simple matter. While a lot of mystery is involved in religion – the Trinity, the two natures of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, the Paschal Mystery, to name a few – the will of God is never mysterious or remote. In order to discern what God would like us to do, we don’t need personal revelations, visions, dreams, or signs in the sky. God’s will is near to us, already in our mouths and in our hearts. It is the way of mercy, compassion and love; and it is always just one decision away from us.