COMPASSION
The lawyer in today’s gospel sought
wiggle room. He pointedly addressed Jesus as the teacher and pretended
that he sought the road to eternal life, not to mention life right now.
Jesus, knowing the man to be a lawyer, asked him to quote the law, which
the lawyer did correctly. So far, so good. The lawyer, used to this kind
of debate, asked one question too many, “And who is my neighbor?”
The lawyer learned that there was no
wiggle room; absolutely everybody qualified as neighbor. And the best neighbor
in this story was the ill-regarded Samaritan. As long as memory served,
Jew was set against Samaritan and Samaritan against Jew. The contempt was
mutual and thoroughgoing. Not only were the Samaritans regarded as faithless
traitors, but they also were inhospitable and made travel difficult and
dangerous for the Jews who needed a direct route from Judea in the south
to Galilee in the north. It seemed reasonable that one could exclude the
Samaritans from the term neighbor. It seemed reasonable to set aside a
few as not worthy of the role of neighbor.
Jesus’ listeners must have found it
insufferable that the Samaritan was the compassionate one. The despised
one was set before them as an example of the compassion God sought.
The supposedly faithless Samaritan wins
the day. Belonging to the right group and abiding by all the laws in the
books and all the fine points did not add up to salvation. Standing in
compassionate relationship to one man left half-dead added up to salvation.
© Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
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