7th
Trinity III
Luke 10:25-37
On one
occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he
asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"What is
written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
He
answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;' and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself."
"You have
answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this, and you will live."
But he
wanted to justify himself, so he asked
Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
In reply, Jesus said, "A man was going 
Van Gogh
down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was
attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away,
leaving him half dead. A priest
happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by
on the other side. So too, a
Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
"But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
The expert
in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus
told him, "Go and do
likewise."
7th August Trinity
September 5, 2021
Luke 10:25-37
Christ affirms that to love God with one's whole being and to
love one's fellow human beings as well as oneself is the path to eternal life. Love
directed outward, beyond oneself, overcomes the deadening effects of mere self-love.
Yet there comes our somewhat defensive next question: which of my fellow human
beings am I supposed to love? Christ's answer in story form is— Not just my family,
not just my own tribe or those with whom I can identify. Any fellow human being
whom I happen upon along the way can be the recipient of a love that expresses
itself in concrete action. For it is our deeds, not our feelings, that live
beyond the boundaries of this life.
The key here is to regard others with an
attitude of mercy, of loving-kindness. And then we give and do what we can.
It may be that in the story of the Good Samaritan, the
priest and the Levite felt that they could not touch the unclean man because
they were on their way to do work that required their ritual cleanliness. The
Samaritan, though despised by the Jews, was truly free to help (or not). He
helps a stranger in both a personal, hands-on way and also by deputizing and
paying the innkeeper to complete the work involved with the man's healing. He
is thereby pulling in others to help. And he thus also maintains his own
freedom to help the next victim he finds, to further practice his love for his
fellow human beings. 
Corrine Vonaesch
Christ is saying that our neighbor is not necessarily one
whom we know, the one who lives next door. It is also the stranger whom we meet
along the way. It is we who are to act neighborly. The poet Wislawa Szymborska expresses
the universality of this:
Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: "Somebody save me! I'm here. The ocean cast me on this desert island.
I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I'm here!"
"There's no date. I bet
it's already too late anyway.
It could have been floating for years," the first fisherman said.
"And he doesn't say where. It's not even clear which ocean," the second fisherman said.
"It's not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere," the third fisherman said.*
* "Parable," in Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, trans. S. Baranczak and C.
Cavanagh
