13 July 2025 – 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Deut 30:10-14; Col 1:15-20; Lk 10:25-37
Homily
The first reading we heard was taken from the book of Deuteronomy, which, of all the books of the Old Testament, is the most legalistic. And yet the message we heard was a wonderful introduction to the teaching of the Gospel. This text told us that God's Law cannot be reduced to a series of rules, but is a law of love, written on our hearts. If we listen to this law of love that God has written on our hearts, all the other precepts of the Gospel or of the Church will take on their true meaning. If we do not, they will remain a pile of dead texts.
The very lively account from the Gospel of Luke that we have just read began with an important question asked of Jesus by a doctor of the Law. It was a very good question, personal and practical. In fact, he did not ask in an abstract way, ‘What is the greatest commandment?’ but rather, ‘What must I do?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You are a teacher of the Law; you must know this. What do you read in your Law?’ And the man gave the right answer: " You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.‘ Very good! said Jesus! Do this and you will have eternal life. The teacher found that the dialogue had ended a little too abruptly and asked another question: ’But then... who is my neighbour?"
Jesus answers this second question with a parable. It is important to remember that the entire parable that follows is an answer to the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ For when he has finished telling the parable, Jesus returns precisely to this question: ‘Who, in your opinion, was the neighbour of the man who fell among thieves?’ With this question, Jesus forces the teacher to identify with the man who fell into the ditch and was beaten by robbers. (Let us remember that the technique of the parable as a form of teaching consisted in leading the listeners to identify with one of the characters in the story.)
Let us return to the structure of the story. The teacher had said, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and Jesus rephrases the same question at the end: ‘Who was the neighbour of the man who fell among thieves?’ The teacher can only answer, ‘His neighbour was the one who showed him compassion.’ If we keep all this in mind, we will realise that when Jesus says, ‘Go and do likewise,’ the immediate meaning is not ‘Go and be a good Samaritan yourself,’ but rather, ‘Like the man who fell among thieves, accept that even a Samaritan can be your neighbour.’
Jesus asks us to transcend—through love—all the divisions we establish between ourselves. Transposed into today's world, the division between Samaritans and Jews would be the division between the poor and the rich, between developed and underdeveloped countries, between capitalists and communists, between advocates of globalisation and its victims, between Blacks and Whites, between conservatives and progressives, between citizens and illegal residents, etc., etc.
For us, the person on the other side is usually the one who is wrong. Jesus invites us to recognise the presence of compassion in such a person and to accept his/her help. The Samaritan in this parable is travelling. As for the priest and the Levite, they are at home and therefore have a lot to do. They don't have time to help. They also have everything they need. They are self-sufficient and do not recognise their neighbour. But the Samaritan is travelling. He is outside his normal environment. He has come to a foreign land in search of something. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was very dangerous, especially for a Samaritan. He was a poor man, a person who knew contempt, danger and fear. He was therefore able to open himself to compassion.
If we transpose all this into today's world -- who is the person who fell into the ditch, attacked by robbers? It is the one who left Jerusalem to go down to Jericho: the one who left the safety of the holy city, with its comforts and certainties, to seek something else, heading into the unknown, like Abraham. It is, for example, the person who seeks other models of social, political, economic or religious life. It is the person who has left the system or been expelled by the system. Having left the beaten track trodden by the crowds, such a person is vulnerable, more exposed than others to making mistakes, even serious ones. They can easily find themselves in the gutter – which may, incidentally, be their salvation. Such people are found everywhere, especially in prisons or in disreputable places. Wherever they are, they will be easily ignored by the Levites and priests, except to receive lessons in good behaviour from them. Let us hope that one day they will meet a Samaritan.
The Samaritan of today's world is the person who has abandoned the security and comfort of his little world and wants to learn new ways of thinking and living from others. Being himself in a constant state of insecurity – chosen or at least accepted – he can have compassion for those who have fallen. Only if we undertake such a journey, as Christ did, will we be able to help our brothers and sisters, not for the sake of observing a law, or to earn merits in heaven, or for the pleasure of being good and generous, but simply because we will be ‘moved with compassion’.
As a practical conclusion: it would be too easy to resolve to be good Samaritans to those around us. Let us instead listen to the first lesson of Jesus' parable. Let us accept the obvious fact that we have all, in various ways, fallen into the ditch. Our first challenge is to accept that our neighbour, the one who will help us, will be the one we tend to consider unworthy – those for whose conversion we usually pray.
Armand VEILLEUX