In today’s gospel, a scribe stands up to test Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Aware of the scribe’s malicious intent, Jesus throws back the question at him. “You are a scholar of the law, what does it say?” “Love God with all your heart… and your neighbor as yourself.” “Correct, now do it and you will live.”
Perhaps embarrassed and wanting to justify himself, the scholar presses on, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus does not give a direct answer but simply tells a story. A man is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho and falls in the hands of robbers. He is left on the road, half-naked and half-dead. A priest passes by, sees the victim and passes on the opposite side. Later, a Levite appears in the scene and likewise takes the opposite side.
Finally, a third person comes into the picture, a Samaritan traveler. Upon seeing the victim, the Samaritan approaches him, pours oil and wine over his wounds and bandages them. Then he lifts him up on his own animal and takes him to an inn. Leaving some money, he asks the innkeeper to take care of the victim until he returns and settles his accounts.
Jesus then asks the scribe, “Which of these three, in your opinion, is neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” “The one who treats him with mercy,” replies the scribe. And Jesus dismisses him saying, “Go and do likewise.”
Jesus rephrases the question of the scribe from “Who is my neighbor?” to “Which of the three proves to be neighbor to the victim?” The lawyer wants a definition of neighbor which comfortably limits his duty of helping. For him, a neighbor is another scribe or a fellow Jew, never a Samaritan or anyone of different race, faith or religion. Jesus teaches otherwise. My neighbor is anyone who is in need.
Why? Because of the scribe’s primary question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” By asking the question, the scribe unwittingly verbalizes the deepest quest of the human heart – eternal life. And the answer he provides touches the very heart of our faith – love. To love God and our neighbor is to inherit eternal life,
Love is an outward movement that seeks the good of the other. Going back to the parable, why did not the priest and the Levite stop to help a fellow traveler in need? Were they afraid that touching a man who could be dead would render them impure and unfit for worship? Or was it too much trouble for them, or too risky? Or were they just in a hurry? The parable does not tell.
Whatever their reason was, it was all about themselves. They failed to love. True love moves out of oneself to reach out to the other. Often it is a response to something unexpected. And it can be costly and inconvenient.
Like the priest and the Levite, we too are often prevented from loving and helping because of varied reasons. One common excuse is that we’re in a hurry, we have no time. In an experiment on the parable of the good Samaritan, a psychologist discovered that the greatest determinant on those who stop to help a stranger on the road is not those who have compassion or religious conviction but those who have the time.
Kevin Carter was a photojournalist who was catapulted to international fame when he won the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photo of a vulture waiting for a starving little girl to die and feast on her corpse. The photo was taken during the 1993 famine in Sudan. Carter became an instant celebrity but did not live long to savor his success. After a few months, he became depressed and eventually took his own life. His depression started when, during an interview in a phone-in program, someone asked him what happened to the little girl. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I didn’t wait to find out after this shot, as I had a flight to catch.” Then the caller said, “I understand then that there were two vultures on that day, and one had a camera.”
A theologian once said that all the parables of Jesus are actually about Jesus himself. Clearly in today’s parable, the good Samaritan is Jesus. It is Jesus who picks us up, dying on the wayside and stripped of dignity, in order to save us. He pours oil and wine (the sacraments and the Eucharist) on our wounds in order to heal us. He takes us to the inn (the Church) to care for us until he comes back in glory.
Every parable is about Jesus who presents himself as the embodiment of his own teaching. Thus, Jesus concludes his parable of the good Samaritan by saying, “Go and do likewise.”