Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 13, 2025

Luke 10: 25-37

The question the ‘scholar of the law’ asked in today’s gospel reading from Luke is one that still worries us today and makes us search our souls: “And who is my neighbor?” The scholar of the law had just asked the question: “What must I do to be saved?” And Jesus throws the question back to him and the scholar quotes a special prayer in Deuteronomy that all Jews pray three times a day in which they declare their dedication to God and end with “to love your neighbor as yourself.” This of course brings up the question, “And who is my neighbor?” It would seem like a straight forward question that would have a straight forward answer. For the devout Jew, the answer would be all other Jews who kept the Law of Moses. But here Jesus throws a curve ball and thus we have the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan.

When most of the Jewish population was carried off into exile 700 years before Jesus was born, a few lower class people were left behind. These inter married with foreigners who were brought in to live in the land. They developed their own style of the Jewish religion which recognized only the first five books of the Old Testament and worshiped on a mountain in Samaria. When the Jewish exiles came home and reestablished the Temple in Jerusalem about 500 years before Jesus was born, the two groups did not get along; in fact they hated each other even though they were related. By the time of Jesus this bitterness had grown as we saw two Sundays ago. So you can imagine the shock value that this parable had on the audience of Jesus’ time. It would be like using whatever racial or ethnic group as an example that is looked down on in a society today.

The Jewish traveler must not have been very smart or practical since he was apparently traveling alone on a very dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho. No sane person would have done this. So, it is not surprising that he was robbed, beat up, and left for dead. This is not the kind of person you would feel like going out of your way to help since in a sense, the traveler brought it all on himself. This road was solidly in Judea, so the Samaritan who helps the Jewish man, is an unwelcome guest in an unfriendly country. We must ask why he was coming from Jerusalem in the first place; had he worshiped in Jerusalem? In that case any Samaritan who heard this parable would think of the Samaritan traveler as a traitor. This Samaritan would not have been claimed by either country; he was not worth considering. And so we have the foolish Jewish traveler and the Samaritan whom no one wanted to claim.

Now we consider the other travelers who came on the wounded Jewish man first. There was the Priest and the Levite who were probably returning from service in the Temple in Jerusalem. They might have felt some concern, but they were concerned with maintaining ritual purity. Since there had been the shedding of blood, not to mention that the man may be dead, this would have disqualified them from any service in the temple without going through a long, time consuming ritual purification. So, to avoid this problem they just crossed over to the other side of the road and kept going. It was only, the outsider, the Samaritan, who would stop to care for the wounded Jewish man, and go to a good deal of trouble and care in doing so. He did not just clean and bind up the wounds, he gave money for his care, and promised to return and check on the wounded man and even pay the innkeeper more money if it was necessary.

Now, the scholar of the law Jesus was talking to had to painfully answer Jesus question, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robber’s victim?” You can be sure that the scholar did not want to answer that question. He had to say, “The one who treated him with mercy.” He could not bring himself to say “the Samaritan.” This view of who our neighbor is turns upside-down the idea that my neighbor is only someone I am related to by blood, nationality or religion. And on that note, Jesus tells the scholar of the Law, “Go and do likewise.” Jesus is looking at each one of us today and saying the same thing. We do not want to hear it any more than that Jewish man did.

And why? Because this answer makes three uncomfortable demands on us. One, we must help a person even when that person has brought his trouble on himself or herself, as that Jewish traveler had done. our help must be as wide as the love of God. Two, any person of any nation or racial group who is in need is our neighbor; our help must be wide as the love of God. Three, our help must be practical and not just feeling sorry; compassion must be real, it must be expressed in actions, not just in words. And most importantly, we must hear what Jesus says to us, “Go and do likewise;’ and as the first reading from Deuteronomy says, “If only you would heed the voice of the Lord, your God, and keep his commandments...” and return to the Lord with all your heart and soul. We, who are Christian, do this not just out of a commandment, but also because as St. Paul says, “in [Jesus] all things are created...and hold together...that through him all things are reconciled.” As we do likewise, we make Jesus present and visible again. Remember, Jesus gave us a new commandment: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen had a similar experience that changed his life. In his autobiography Treasure in Clay, recounts a visit he made to a leper colony in Buluba, Africa. He intended to give a silver crucifix to each of the 500 lepers residing in Buluba. The first person who came forward, however, was a man so disfigured by the ravages of leprosy that Sheen was repulsed by the sight. The man’s left arm was eaten off at the elbow by the disease; so he extended his right hand. This hand, too, was unspeakably corrupted by this awful disease. Unable to bear the leper’s presence, Sheen held the crucifix above the man’s palm and dropped it, where it was immediately swallowed up in the decaying flesh. Instantly, Sheen was aware of his unrighteous act. He had taken the crucifix “God’s sign of identification with humanity” and refused to associate himself with one of God’s children. Overcome with remorse, Sheen dug his fingers into the man’s leprosy and removed the crucifix. This time, he gently placed the crucifix in the man’s hand. Sheen respectfully handed a crucifix to each of the remaining 499 lepers and, in the exchange, learned to love them with the love of the Good Samaritan. Hopefully one day, each of us will have a similar chance of conversion.

Fr. John Tran