7/10/2016 – 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time – The Story of the Good Samaritan – Luke 10:25-37

This is a revised version of the homily I preached last weekend on the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  I revised it to reflect some of the rather that we have been facing regarding the violence and demonstrations we have been facing in Tupelo and other parts of the county.  

      This has been an incredibly hot summer already, so unfortunately, we have already heard several versions of this same sad story I am about to recount.  There was a young lady coming out of a Walmart in San Antonio, Texas one hot summer afternoon. She passes by a car, seeing a small boy in a car seat, all alone in the locked car with the windows up.  There is no parent or adult in sight.  The boy was asleep, all hot and sweaty. He looked like he was having trouble breathing. The young lady saw a security guard, alerting him about the situation, saying that they needed to break into the car to save the boy. The guard wanted nothing to do with the situation, saying that the police could arrest them for breaking into the car without permission. That didn’t matter to the young lady.  She got a tire iron from her trunk, broke the car’s windshield, climbed through it, and brought the boy to safety.  He was dehydrated and very hot, but fortunately he was OK.  Surveillance footage show that the boy had been in the locked car for 40 minutes.  When his father came out, he said that he had forgotten the boy was in the car. The police said that the lady would not be charged of any crime because of Texas Good Samaritan law, which provides legal protection for those who assist a person who is injured or in danger from unintended consequences that result from their assistance.

     Today’s Gospel story is a part of our modern American consciousness, as we call someone who helps another in need a Good Samaritan.  Being a Good Samaritan may entail helping someone pay a utility bill, driving someone to a doctor visit, or sending a note of encouragement when someone is going through a rough patch in life. It may entail helping someone who might dislike us greatly or praying for someone who has a lot of resentment toward us.  Being a Good Samaritan can lead us to very difficult, challenging, uncomfortable situations. 

      We hear the phrase “Good Samaritan” in today’s Gospel, but who exactly were the Samaritans in Ancient Israel?  Samaritans were half-Jewish and half-Gentile. There was a great animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans in Jesus’ day.  When the Assyrians took the Northern Kingdom captive in the 8^th century BCE, they intermarried, settling in Samaria, just north of Judea.  Samaritans abandoned the Jewish faith, worshipping false idols instead. Samaritans also desecrated the Temple that the Jews were trying to rebuild in the 6^th century BCE, increasing the animosity the Jews had for Samaritans.  The Jews avoided entering Samaria at all cost, even when they had to go out of their way in their travels.  The Samaritan in Jesus’ parable would have been seen as the least likely person to help out a Jew, since the hatred between them was mutual; hatred would not be too strong a word to use to describe this relationship. 

       The law of God that the legal scholar quotes in the Gospel states that we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. But even after hearing the parable of the Good Samaritan, we might still ask, “Who is our neighbor?” Loving our neighbor does not mean just loving our next door neighbor, loving only someone who is just like us. Our neighbor may be the stranger who needs our help or the person who needs our encouraging word or the person in our community who has opinions or a lifestyle the polar opposite of ours.

     The Samaritan shows compassion for the dying man. His compassion is not just a strong emotion – it is also action and care. True compassion leads the Samaritan to being involved in doing good in helping the robbed man, no matter what the cost and time involved.  St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in the 4^th century says: “Mercy, not kinship, makes someone a neighbor.”  There was a very heated debate amongst Jews in Jesus’ day concerning identity of neighbor.  The dying man would be seen as the neighbor in the parable.  But in answer to Jesus’ question – “Which one of these three was the neighbor to the dying man? – it is the Good Samaritan who is the neighbor.  Jesus uses this parable in a very creative way to tell us who our neighbor is.  Here in United State, there also is a lot of debate and discussion going on about who our neighbor is as well. I think about the city of my birth, Chicago, a city I love very much.  There have been as of July 1^st this year more than 2,000 victims of shootings – what a sad, unacceptable statistic.  In the past several weeks, in Dallas, Baton Rogue, Minnesota, and even our own city of Tupelo, we have had shooting incidents that have been very heartbreaking.  And then we are constantly hearing about acts of terrorism that occur here in the US, in Europe, and in Muslim countries as well.  Bishop Robert Muench of Baton Rogue issued a statement following the police shooting in Baton Rouge, urging all Christian faithful to be ambassadors of hope and mercy in our communities that are experiencing feelings of anger, fear, frustration, and sadness.  To all of our neighbors, we can be instruments of healing in the midst of all the hurt and the pain that is our there.  Many pastors and bishops are calling for calm while investigations unfold to the police shootings that have taken place – I urge the same caution.  Our hearts go out to all victims of shooting and violence of any kind – no matter who those victims are.  We pray for repose of the souls of those who are deceased.  We pray for those who have been injured.  We pray for their family members and those who grieve.   I as your pastor have to say that we here at St James Catholic Church in Tupelo are called to stand in solidarity with our police officers, our sheriff’s department, and with the other first responders, with our mayor and with our police chief.  The put their lives on the line each day and make so many sacrifices for our community.  I cannot imagine trying to put myself in their shoes, imagining what they face each day as they protect us and keep us safe.  As Bishop of Baton Rouge stated, we pray for our communities, our state, and our nation as we all grapple with the violence and the tragic deaths that have occurred, as we address racism, discrimination and the social sins of many kinds that continue to surface.  As Catholics, we are always to remember that our Catholic social teachings teach tell us to value the dignity of every human being as a creation of God. 

      We are in the midst of the Year of Mercy. The Parable of Good Samaritan is indeed a parable of mercy.   We become the neighbor to our fellow human beings because God draws near to us, as he continues to draw near to us thru his Beloved Son, helping us to be a neighbor in the midst of our own wounds & weaknesses.  By loving God, we are indeed able to love our neighbor.