The Good Samaritan

At the beginning of this month, we celebrated the founding of our nation.  In 1867, the three British colonies of Canada (Upper and Lower), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia united in confederation.  Over the last century and a half, our country continued to evolve and grow.  Part of our growth involved us in accepting new people by immigration from all over the world.

More recently, we began to realize that we have been blind to the people who were here before our ancestors came to North America.  The Indigenous peoples in America have been here for many millennia.  Recognizing them as people who have been here before us is significant.  The result of this growth has formed Canada into a nation of many cultures, religions and peoples.  We are multi-cultural.  Rather than seeing ourselves as a “melting pot”, we are a patch-work quilt.

Sure, there are times and occasions when we seem uncomfortable with this identity.  And not everyone honors this view entirely.  We have seen incidents which express a rejection of different cultures living among us.  These are painful reminders that we are not always as open as we might want to be.  But in general, it is how we are seen by others and for the most part by ourselves.  

In the Gospel of Luke, we hear the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37).  It is one of those gospel stories that we could almost tell by heart.  Jesus tells the story in the context of an exchange with a lawyer who asks Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus says: “What is written in the law?”  In response, the lawyer offers the two-fold commandment of love, for God and for neighbor.  Jesus indicates, this is correct.  Then comes the challenge from the lawyer: “And who is my neighbor?”  To that, Jesus responds with the story of the “Good Samaritan”.

 A man was on a journey.  On the way he encountered some thieves who beat and robbed him, “leaving him half dead” by the side of the road.  Several persons walked on by including a priest and a Levite.  These two “passed by on the other side”.  This comment is important because it reveals that they feared touching a bleeding or dead person as it would make them ritually unclean.  For them, to do so would be to break their religious ritual laws.

Finally, a Samaritan came along.  He did not pass by but instead showed observance of the ultimate law, mercy, compassion and care.  Not only this, but the Samaritan also made provision for the wounded man’s continuing care.

 Samaritans were viewed as unbelievers.  Once they were part of God’s People, but centuries before they had separated and were now seen as outsiders.  A great hostility existed between Jews and Samaritans.  The Gospels reveal this divide and hostility every so often.  One of the insults that were hurled against Jesus was accusing him of being a Samaritan (John 8:48).  In Luke’s Gospel when a Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus his disciples suggested that they call down fire from heaven to consume the village.  Jesus rebuked them for this. (9:51-56) It is no small thing that as Jesus tells the story of the man beaten up on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho those who followed the ritual law meticulously “passed by”.  It was the Samaritan, the outcast, who stopped and used all his resources, and offered compassion and care.

We are facing a world that seems bent on building walls and boundaries, national, cultural, religious.  The root of this lies in fear of “the other”, the one who is different from us.  Thus, we lock the doors, close borders, reject those who are different, create barriers between us.

Jesus’s mission is one of mercy – for all, by all.  That is the message of the Kingdom of God.  No one is excluded from this mercy, for God’s loves all, unconditionally.  Compassion and care know no boundaries, no borders.  This is the ultimate law for all humanity.  Ten years ago, Pope Francis called us to a Jubilee Year devoted to mercy.  Mercy is open and free.  There are no walls or boundaries.  The Samaritan expressed mercy.  Can we?