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In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
I want to attract you attention to two or three of the features of
today's parable. We are told that a man was on his way from Jerusalem to
Jericho. In the Old Testament Jerusalem was the place where God lived;
it was the place of worship, the place of prayer. And he was now on the
way down to the plain, down from the mountain of vision to where human
life takes place.
And on the way he was attacked, stripped of his clothes, wounded and lay
on the wayside. And three men came one after the other following the
same road. The three had been where God lives, the three had been in the
place of worship, adoration and prayer. And two of them passed him by.
The text is so vivid when it says that the priest simply passed by; it
does not even indicate that he cast a glance on him. He was a man vested
with high authority, he had nothing to do with common human needs - at
least that is what he thought; he had learned nothing from praying to
the God Who is love itself. And then another man came, a Levite, a man
versed in the knowledge of the Scriptures, but not in the knowledge of
God. He came, he stood above this man wounded and dying - and continued
his way. His mind was on higher things than a human life, than human
suffering - as he thought.
And then came a man, a man who in the eyes of the Jews was despicable
simply by being what he was; not for his personal moral or other
defects, but because he was a Samaritan - an outcast, what Indians would
call a pariah. And this man stopped over the wounded man because he knew
what it was to be rejected, he knew what it was to be alone, to be
passed by others in contempt and at times in hatred. And he bent over
this man, he did what he could to heal his wounds, he took him to a
place of rest; and all this he did at his own cost. Not only he paid the
hostelry for the hospitality which they were bestowing on the wounded
man; but he gave his time, he gave his mind, he gave his heart. He paid
the cost in all ways in which we can pay the cost of being attentive to
people around us.
We have spent a whole morning in God's own presence, in the place where
He lives; we have heard His voice speaking to us about love; we have
proclaimed that we believe that God Who is Love itself, the God Who gave
His Only-Begotten Son that each of us, and not all of us collectively,
but each of us personally might be saved. And we are going to leave this
church; we will meet more than one person in the course of the coming
week or until at a later date we come again to church. Are we going to
be like the priest or the Levite? Pondering on what we have learned
here, keeping in our hearts the wonder and the joy, but passing by
everyone because to care for things lesser might disturb our peace, take
our mind and heart away from this sense of the marvel of having seen
God, of having been in His presence? If we do this, then we have
understood little, if anything, of the Gospel, of Christ, of God. And if
we ask like the young man, or the lawyer, ‘But who is my neighbour? Who
is he for whose sake I must be prepared to let go of the deepest
feelings of my heart, of the most lofty concern of my mind, of the best
I feel within me? - the answer of Christ is direct and simple: anyone!
Anyone who is in need of you on any possible level; on the simplest
level of food or shelter, of gentleness and kindness, of thoughtfulness
and friendliness.
And if one day - and it may never come, but may come at any moment -
more is asked, then we must be prepared to love our neighbour as Christ
has taught us: with the readiness to lay down our lives for him. It is
not a matter of giving one's life in the sense of being killed; it's a
question of giving day in and day out our concern to all those who are
in need of concern; those who sorrow need consolation; those who are
lost need strength and support; those who are hungry need food; those
who are destitute may need clothes; and those who are in spiritual
disarray may need a word that streams from that very faith which we
receive here and which is our life.
Let us therefore go from this place remembering this parable not as one
of the most beautiful things which Christ has said, but as a direct
itinerary, a direct way in which He calls us to be and to treat one
another and to look round with attentive eyes, remembering that at times
the smallest kindness, one warm word, one attentive gesture may make all
the difference to the life of a person who is alone to face his or her
own life. May God help us to be like the Good Samaritan on all levels
and to all people. Amen.
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