Fifteenth Sunday in Year C
What if the Lord Jesus were the Good Samaritan, and we the man who was left for dead?
Actually, it is not such a novel idea. St. Augustine had preached about it. Jesus is the Good Samaritan, we the man left half dead after being assaulted by Satan and our sins, the Church the inn where travellers on the way to heaven get refreshment and the tomorrow is after the resurrection of the Lord.
Imagine if we were the lawyer who asked the question about what we must do to inherit eternal life. After all, we are the good Catholics, or even better, we are born Catholics, not like they who became Catholic later in life, and we know the Faith by heart, from the good old days when we learnt it from the Penny Catechism.
We ask the question to disconcert him, because we want to show the Lord, and anybody else who cares to pay attention, that we know the Law, the deposit of faith, well, and we are ready to preserve it in its pristine state. That is why we asked it, to show off. To show that we know. Certainly he will praise and glorify us, as he should.
And when he asks, like the good teacher he is, throwing the question right back at us, what says the Law, what do we read, we give the answer right and ready as we learnt it. Because we know it by heart. And he says, we are right, go and do it, and eternal life will be ours. But we knew all that, and are anxious to justify ourselves and we throw him the question, who is our neighbour?
Because we know he will respond as he should, saying that my fellow good Catholic is my neighbour, of course. Those who know and defend the Faith as I do. Not the other Catholics and the rest. The good Catholic is my neighbour.
It turns out we made a mistake to trust him with the right answer, for then he tells a story, as all good teachers do. The story of the Good Samaritan. Our immediate response wants to remind him: point number one, you don’t get a good Samaritan. You know what they are like. They did not and do not keep the Faith as we do. And point number two, he is not one of us.
Othering. It’s a terrible thing to do, but it is so awfully useful. Setting up our world in us and them groups.
It is safer that way. We first brand them as them with a useful name. Then we keep them out, because they are different to us. They are not like us. They do not belong with us.
Someone once said that Jesus is the ultimate Other. He is unlike us in an absolute way. Yes, he is human just like us, but he is God, totally different to us.
Here he comes, the Other, and he is the one who assists us, who fell into the hands of our enemy, Satan. We have, in any case, through our sin and shame, exposed ourselves just enough to fall into his hands. We are left for dead.
Those closest to us, our neighbour, the one just like us, the good Catholic, goes the other way and passes us by. Why? Because that is what our pristine faith and whatever else we have crafted to cut us off from one another, do. It isolates us.
Jesus comes, the Other. He does not pass us by. He comes up to us, he stays to help and heal. For we are his neighbour. He, God, is closest to us.
So, who is our neighbour, besides God? Fratelli tutti, the pope replied some years back.
We humans are all brothers and sisters of each other. We are each other’s neighbour.
Jesus, the ultimate Other, shows us how to break down the barriers between us and them, to stop othering people, but instead, to draw them in, help them up, as he does to us. All of us.