[ Today's Readings ]
What we are asked is not complicated. It is not some obscure mystery available only to the highest level initiates.
"For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.
We do tend to try to complicate it, though.
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
The problem isn't that we don't understand that the Samaritan is our neighbor. On some level we get that. The problem us. We don't succeed in loving everyone who crosses our path. We have so many obligations ourselves that we seldom succeed in putting love first. Any our religious duties can become excuses. Even if we're a priest or a Levite we might put the letter of the law before the love to which it calls us. The priest and the Levite are so interested in their own purity that they fail to see the neighbor in need. This isn't real purity. This is isolating, inwardly focused, and ultimately unhealthy. Yet they are called to both purity and to love. How can they possible balance all of that? There are just so many people cast down by the side of the road. How can we possibly love them all while still fulfilling the obligations placed on us?
No, it is something very near to you,
already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out.
The Word who has the power to do this is already within us. He is the one in whom all things were made. He holds everything together.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
Only in him can we escape from the trap of ego and an overly inward focus. Only in him are we made one with others because he has torn down all the barriers through the blood of his cross.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.
Jesus himself is the one who is moved with compassion at the sight of our suffering. He himself approaches us, pours the oil of the Spirit on us and cleans the wounds of sin with the wine of his precious blood. He himself pays the cost of our care. But this same Jesus lives within us. The love of the Samaritan for the victim is the love which Jesus makes present in our own hearts. It is very near to us, because Jesus lives within us. We have only to carry it out.
"See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not."
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