Sunday, July 11, 2010
Deuteronomy 30:10-14 Colossians 1:15-20 Luke 10:25-37
We have a mindset today that keeping or breaking a law doesn’t really make any difference as long as we don’t get caught. Avoiding punishment is the name of the game and choosing to break laws is about getting what we want–whether it involves shoplifting, running a red light or cheating on our income tax. All too many of us live lives that revolve around personal gain–looking after “number one.”
At first glance the Gospel this Sunday is about keeping the two great commandments. By answering the lawyer’s question with a parable, Jesus shows us a broader issue-that of giving up personal gain for the good of another.
In the Gospel the lawyer approaches Jesus to “test” him with the question about eternal life. The issue here isn’t whether we have life or not–Jesus wishes us to have life–but on how we gain that life. The lawyer knows that the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor sum up the whole law and prophets. One only needs to live that love. The lawyer focuses on himself and refuses to see the broader issue.
Jesus doesn’t directly answer the question about “who is my neighbor” because he knows the scholar has the law written within him (see first reading: “For this command I enjoin…already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.”) Instead Jesus responds to the lawyer’s question with a parable that illustrates how keeping the law isn’t a matter of focusing on details and right and wrong or personal gain but is a matter of right relationship with one’s neighbors as exhibited by acting with compassion and mercy. The lawyer’s first question about inheriting eternal life has to do with his own gain. The episode and parable unfold not in terms of personal gain but in terms of compassion and mercy toward others.
Ironically, the way we inherit eternal life is by dying to self for the sake of another. The Samaritan in the parable isn’t moved to help the stricken traveler because of the external law but because he was a person of compassion and mercy. This is the law written within our hearts–not details about keeping specific laws but a general regard for the other that arises out of genuine care for the other. Moreover, this way of keeping the law is yet another manifestation of God’s reign being realized. It is an in breaking of a new order, a new way of relating to each other; personal gain is set aside in favor of the good of another.
- What do you understand treating another “with mercy” to mean?
- The Samaritan was “moved” not by the Law but by compassion. In your work at St. Mary’s, by what are you moved?
- What is the difference in your service to others when you embody compassion?
Fr. Joseph Manship
Pastoral Care
