Mass Readings for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Deuteronomy 30.10-14 Psalm 19.7-10 Colossians 1.15-20 Luke 10.25-37
The gospel today is a dialogue between a lawyer and Jesus that gives rise to the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. And we could return to that commendable story of caring and take instruction from it; but when we consider how the gospel relates to the Old Testament reading, what emerges is more than a lesson in compassion.
The larger message is about being attentive to the law of God, to knowing the Gospel beyond platitudes about love and service, striving after a deeper understanding that must be brought to the many difficult situations we will meet with in life. As Moses tells the Israelites, and Jesus reiterates in his own teaching, the Word is near you, it is accessible, we have revelation in scripture and tradition preserved by the faith community along with a long-established method of interpretation. And we have the Holy Spirit to guide us; and we are made in the image and likeness of God – that is, we have God-given reason, we are thinking beings for a reason. We also have deep intuition, what St. Paul calls the law written on our hearts, what the Church refers to in the idea of “natural law” – we have a sense of right and wrong that is verifiable from our experience of the world. As a result, even in a compromised conscience, a corrupted soul, one can “feel” that something is wrong even as one does what is evil.
It is no small thing for a disciple of Jesus to get to a point in his spiritual life where mind and heart, reason and compassion, mercy and truth are met within. Yet that is our work, to know God, love him, serve him faithfully in this life so as to be with Him eternally in the next. So, we must form ourselves and others accordingly.
The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbour?” and that is not, at that time in Judea and the surrounding Jewish lands, an uncontroversial question. Jews were very much a community whose existence was threatened: occupied by the Romans, colonized by Greeks, and living with a significant minority, the Samaritans, who were regarded as heretics, and with whom there was great mutual hatred.
How Jesus answers is our lesson, and not necessarily the answer itself, as good an answer as it is.
It’s significant that we have this dialogue between Jesus and an expert in the law. And to just clarify, the religious law of Israel, the law of Moses, was also the criminal law, the civil law. The law governed more than just religious practice.
This will be an informed conversation. Jesus won’t be able to simply tell him what to believe by invoking his authority; he is not speaking to a child who has yet to develop an intellect; Jesus has to convince him through respectful conversation.
Now, we read that the lawyer is asking a question to “test” Jesus. I don’t take this as anything nefarious. In other passages, Jesus’ enemies are trying to trap him, and the text says as much.
Here, we have an intelligent man who’s likely heard many popular preachers, and he has become sceptical, especially when these layman touch on matters of the law.
So, this is all to say that it is fair for this man to want to know if Jesus is a person of real spiritual and intellectual substance, if he is someone to be listened to, to be followed.
Now last week I mentioned that in discussion among the clergy and pastoral staff of our parishes there has emerged two clear priorities: liturgy and catechism.
I spoke at greater length last week about the issue of worship, and I will revisit that subject; but today I think it fair to say that this encounter between Jesus and the lawyer speaks to the issue of catechism, teaching the faith.
We would be mistaken to think that people who come to our parish church, who inquire about the faith, come as “blank slates”. People will have mistaken ideas about Christianity, but they won’t come without any knowledge or experience; they certainly will come with a fair amount of scepticism as most in our society have been schooled in suspicion of religion and its claims, and particularly to be on guard against Christianity.
Many people who come to the Catholic faith do so by way of Protestantism; and that can mean a familiarity with scripture, and in some instances, an excellent background in the Bible. Others will come from a more secular background, and from that world they will have imbibed deeply, whether they realize it or not, ideas stemming from materialist philosophy; but some will be quite aware of this, and so they will have studied Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and many of the other philosophers who laid the foundations of secular modernity. So, we cannot teach from authority. We can’t simply tell them, “This is just the way it is, because Jesus said so.”
Now, we can’t argue people into faith in Jesus Christ, but we can certainly discourage them by failing to give faithful witness; and faithful witness is in emulating our master as best we can, and that means teaching as he did, with respect and a desire to lead people into all truth, not drag them there.
What we can do is prepare for tests like this one. Now, of course Jesus said that we shouldn’t worry in moments of trial about what we will say, that the Holy Spirit will come; but there he was talking about us being literally on trial. Here we’re talking about our preparedness for the conversations that the curious will have with us about Christian beliefs; and they will most often relate to current discussions of moral questions.
One very important principle that Jesus establishes in this discussion is that what he teaches isn’t just for Christians to believe. Jesus teaches the truth. So, when we discuss “what Catholics believe” we must be careful to answer in such a way that it is not a matter of our having idiosyncratic beliefs based on some ancient texts; but that we, as Catholics, are concerned to know the truth of things. And, yes, we do take Jesus as our teacher, but we believe him because his words are true. In the subtle case of the Samaritan, Jesus teaches the lawyer by respecting the law and giving him a conflict that must be reconciled. The laws of ritual purity were binding on priests and Levites: they cannot touch human blood or they will be defiled and so, unable to serve in the Temple. Their service in the Temple is regarded as vital to the survival of the people. Yet, there is also a commandment of love of neighbour.
And so, Jesus sets the lawyer and example in his parable.
And cleverly, he makes the hero of the story a Samaritan, that most reviled of characters. But by doing so, he demonstrates the universal principal of charity of neighbour, that it is binding on all human persons, and so it must be a divine law and not just a “Jewish law.” The law about ritual purity was not binding on the Samaritan; it’s not binding on a Greek or a Roman. But if a Greek or a Roman had passed by the beaten man, we would condemn them. Had Jesus substituted for the Samaritan a roman soldier, the lesson would be similar. Jesus teaches a higher law, he teaches truth.
And this particular lesson about who our neighbour is would have been a hard thing to accept because that higher law then endorses his command to love one’s enemies, to be kind to those who hate you. His teaching meant that Judeans had to be good to Samaritans, they were obligated to acts of charity toward Romans in need, to Greeks in distress. How can we possibly be good to people who mean us no good? Jesus, don’t you understand that as nice and good as this teaching is, there are mitigating circumstances? We have to be mean to the Samaritans, vicious toward the Romans, nasty to the Greeks so they’ll go away.
Sorry, no exceptions. It’s a universal law, and the lawyer is led to that truth by our Lord through a respectful discussion; and the clever use of this parable that leads to an inescapable conclusion without a great deal of sophisticated argument.
Lately there has been much talk of abortion. The Holy Father, Pope Francis has spoken quite forcefully on this. You may get asked to defend this “catholic belief” for indeed, one accusation is that many of the U.S. Supreme Court justices are Catholic and they have imposed their beliefs on the American people, and fear of this imposition is part of the pro-abortion message here in Canada.
I don’t believe abortion is wrong because I’m a Catholic. I thought it was wrong before I became a Catholic. There was a time when I thought it was unfortunate, but necessary thing in our society; for the sake of women’s rights, we needed to allow it. I argued for it as a “necessary evil” because there were mitigating circumstances.
But then I came to see that wasn’t true.
I came to see the truth of the Church’s teaching, even before I became a part of the Church. And I would argue that it was through that process of seeing that the Church was about truth, and not its “beliefs” that I came to see it as more than a human institution, but something founded by Christ who is truth personified.
He gave himself to us in his human life among us, in the Church he established, in the words that have been preserved our hearing and in the sacraments that make him tangible for us in this world. He has ensured that he is near us, he who is the Word; and it is then for us to keep him always in our hearts and on our lips so that we might be mindful to observe what he has taught us by word and deed. I don’t need to go up to heaven to find the truth, nor cross the seas to bring it back. It is here, and I must be brave enough to speak with my Lord and allow him to guide me into all truth.
Amen.