15th Sunday in Ordinary Time - C
July 11, 2010
Deut 30:10-14
Col 1:15-20
Lk 10:25-37
It was just a little over a year ago. I was enroute to my rural mission parish, Sts. Peter & Paul outside the little town of Gilbert. I came upon an accident. Someone injured. But I didn’t want to keep people at Church waiting for Mass, so I drove on by.
Four years ago, I was returning to Ames from Des Moines. It was late at night. I saw a disheveled man walking along road. Just returning from ordination class reunion, several hundred dollars cash in car. Could he have seen me leaving the hotel with all that money? Is this a scam? Someone wanting to rob me?
When we leave our familiar world and enter into the world of this parable, we find ourselves walking along the road to Jerico. We stand beside the Samaritan and wonder if we would act in the same way. Could we stop to save an enemy? Could we reach out to a wounded stranger? Do we have the courage to help the victim of a violent crime, knowing that the criminal might still be waiting for us?
Or are we more like the Levite and the Priest? Busy with our own interests, frightened of the unknown, wary of getting involved, eager to return to safety?
No matter what approach we take to this story, we tend to align ourselves with either the “Good” Samaritan who helps, or the “Bad” Levite and priest, who don’t. We can stop, or we can keep walking on the other side. We can act, or we can ignore. We can be proud of our response, or we can feel ashamed. But either way, we have choices…and power.
And yet, there are other people in this story. People who seem to have no options, no power, no voice. Maybe that’s why we tend to ignore them and focus exclusively on ourselves! But maybe these are the very people that God wants us to see.
What if God is trying to teach us that mercy comes when we are so weak we can no longer resist? What if God wants us to know that grace and love are poured out when we have no choice but to accept? What if God is challenging us to be brave enough…open enough…weak enough, to be saved by an enemy…or to be used as an instrument, even when we don’t really understand? What if God is asking us to accept something on nothing more than a stranger’s word? What if God is inviting us to become, not just the Samaritan, but the innkeeper or the wounded one in the ditch?
Like all parables, this story is more complex than it first appears. Like all good stories, it invites us to linger, to explore, and most of all, to be surprised.
One person who followed the Lord’s command to love was Mother Teresa. She had been a teacher occupied with her classes until one day, while walking down the street in Calcutta, she came upon a woman who was half-dead. Moved with compassion, she stayed with the woman until she died. That experience began her lifetime of service to poor and terminally ill people. The number of members in the community of servants that she founded is now in the thousands, serving in hundreds of countries throughout the world. Pope John Paul said of her, "The world has need of saints and witnesses, models worthy of being imitated. Suffice it to remember Mother Teresa of Calcutta, image of the good Samaritan, who became for all, believers and non-believers, a messenger of love and peace."
Spend some time this week, figuring out how you can be more like Mother Teresa.
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F: What does he think we are running here, a Temple of the Sick?
Does my husband look like that silly Greek healer Asclepius ?
Do I?
I told him not to take the money.
I told him not to be a fool.
The road to Jerico is filled with robbers and thieves
and men who will slit your throat for a slice of stale bread.
Where would our guests stay if we took in every stray
who appeared at our door?
M: I don’t even pretend to understand the Samaritan.
Maybe I never will.
But then again, maybe I don’t need to.
Maybe it’s enough just to say, “yes”,
even when you don’t really understand.
F: We try to keep a decent place—
a safe haven for merchants and families
and pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.
We don’t want any trouble.
Especially from bandits, or their “victims”.
M: When this traveler came into the courtyard,
battered and bleeding, flung over the back of a donkey—
he looked more dead than alive.
Even now, I wouldn’t make any wagers on him.
F: The stranger in my BEST room,
beaten to a pulp and naked as a baby,
except for the cloak that Samaritan threw over him.
The whole thing is a fish story, if you ask me.
Found him on the side of the road!
Just wanted to help!
There’s more to this than meets the eye,
and none of it can be good for us.
What Samaritan ever stopped to help a Jew?
Why would they?
Half breeds…
Heretics…
I’d sooner trust a Gentile than a Samaritan.
He probably robbed the man himself,
and then saw a witness coming down the road.
He dumped him here to save his worthless hide,
paid us with the man’s own money
and left us to clean up the mess.
M: The Samaritan did what he could,
then gave us two silver coins,
and begged us to keep him safe.
I should have said “No” right then.
I should have turned them both away.
But I didn’t.
Maybe I was just too shocked to say, “No”.
Why would a Samaritan stop to help a Jew?
Why would he get involved?
If these two men met in the marketplace,
they would probably argue about
where to worship, and how to live
and who they could claim as ancestors.
Or else they would shun each other,
and carefully gather their robes
to avoid being soiled.
F: Do I look like someone’s nursemaid?
Or a woman with nothing to do?
I have meals to fix and rooms to prepare
and servants who will steal us blind
the moment my back is turned.
What if this man never gets well?
What then? Two silver coins are nothing compared to all this worry.
M: So I keep wondering,
why did he stop?
Most people would have turned away.
Most people would have kept on going.
Someone’s always being robbed along the Jerico road
and you just can’t save them all, can you?
But maybe he knows that…
and he stopped anyway.
F: Why was he traveling alone, anyway?
Maybe he got the beating he deserved.
Maybe he’s a thief,
and will murder us all in our sleep.
Take care of him,
the Samaritan said.
I’ll be back to pay you more.
We’ll never see the Samaritan or his money again.
And in the meantime,
we have a bloody stranger
sleeping in our best room
while the inn overflows with guests.
M: He promised more silver if we need it,
and even if he is a heretic and a half-breed,
I believe him.
So the wounded stranger gets our best room
and my full attention.
Maybe she’s right, maybe I am a fool.
Maybe we’ll never see that Samaritan
or his money again.
But I don’t care.
Sometimes, maybe it’s enough just to say, “yes”,
even when you don’t really understand.
adapted from Susan Fleming McGurgan