He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live."
He had answered correctly. The command was not something to mysterious or remote for him. Yet if he knew the answer, why was he here asking Jesus what he thought? Was he simply looking for an opportunity to be validity for being correct? That, it would seem, was not all, for he was not content with the response he received from Jesus.
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
Perhaps this scholar of the law had a suspicion that, although he knew the basic principles that would lead to eternal life, and although they were not complex, to do them, to carry them out, was somehow elusive. He could perhaps obey the law if the definition of neighbor was narrowly constrained to be the family and friends to whom he was close and who gave him pleasure. But there were hints in the law that mercy could not be so narrowly construed, that it was meant for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan, as well as family and friends.
Jesus replied,
"A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
This victim, heading away from the holy city, away from the place of blessing, was an easy target on a dangerous road. He was robbed of his royal inheritance by sin, leaving him half-dead. Like Adam, he had died spiritually, and his body was well on its way to joining his spirit in the realm of death. For the plight of this man the law read without faith in Jesus as the interpretative key it could not help. Indeed, then the focus would be on self-protection and one's own ritual purity. In some sense this was necessary to keep the contagion of sin and death at bay. But in the broad scheme of God's plan it did not reflect the intentions he had already declared, that he desired mercy rather than sacrifice. Those who did not have faith would also not respond as neighbors. The idea that they ought not became an excuse to go as far to the other side of the road when passing the injured man as possible.
A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
They saw him, but, as far as we read, their hearts were unmoved. Their priority appeared not to be mercy but purity. They seemed insistent that justification was a matter of their fastidious effort and therefore refused to entertain the suggestion of faith that there might be some way to help the man half killed by sin.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.
A Samaritan who was not so constrained, perhaps, by the letter of the law, was more ready to feel and to show compassion for the victim. Fulfillment of the deeper meaning of the law could not come from the approach of the priest or the Levite. Surprisingly, it was the Samaritan, who had good reason to regard a man from Jerusalem as his enemy, who was the one who was able to recognize in him a neighbor. The Samaritan represented Jesus himself, who came to demonstrate the priority of mercy and compassion. He unlocked Spirit of the law by seeing in the victim a neighbor, one made in his own image and likeness. In seeing this truth he was moved with compassion to do what the law unaided by grace could not do.
He approached the victim,
poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.
Jesus approached the victim even while he was yet an enemy of God. He drew near by his incarnation, and, because he saw in him what no one else could see, was moved to do for him what no one else could do. Only the grace of the sacramental life (the oil and the wine) received within his Church (the inn) could restore what sin had stolen from this man. Self-justification was insufficient. His healing was possible because the true Good Samaritan lifted him up on his own animal, carrying his sins as though they were his own. The true Good Samaritan paid the victim's debt with the two coins of his divine and human nature. The inn would be a safe place, assured of access to the resources of the Samaritan himself to do what was necessary to facilitate his continued convalescence (and here, a vague hint of the treasury of merit make indulgences possible).
I shall repay you on my way back.
Finally, the Samaritan was not content to simply do a work of mercy and then move on, forgetting the victim. He himself would be drawn by his compassion for the victim to return for him one day.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
Without Jesus as our model, without faith in him, without his grace operative in our hearts, we will fail to be good neighbors and resort to self-justification just as the scholar did. We can only love because he first loved us. We can only do likewise only when we first receive this mercy, and more, when we know the mercy we have received. We are meant to live united to him in whom all the fullness was pleased to dwell. Then we too can be guided by compassion and motivated by mercy. The oil of the Spirit and the wine of the Blessed Sacrament will give us the strength of heart to believe that we too can love God and neighbor, sharing, as we will, in God's own love for us.
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