Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Fr Dominic’s Homily

A clever scribe who knows all about the Jewish law asks Jesus a question in order to disconcert Jesus and catch him out. He sees him as a lowly carpenter.

“Master what must I do to inherit eternal life?” But Jesus of course cannot be caught out. So he answers the question with another question. “What is in the law – what do you see there?” The Torah was written in Hebrew that has no vowels in it. This means that it can be interpreted in many ways according to how you change the words.

The lawyer responds “You must love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your heart. And your neighbour as yourself.” Jesus responds “you have answered right. Do this and life is yours.”

The lawyer hasn’t succeeded in catching Jesus out so asks him another question – “And who exactly is my neighbour?”

So Jesus responds with this parable. It’s about a man on his way down from Jerusalem down to Jericho. The road is quite steep as Jericho is below sea level and Jerusalem is up high on a hill. Now on his way the man is attacked and robbed and beaten being left for dead.

A Jewish priest passes by and does nothing. Why? Because when a Jewish Priest was on duty he tried to maintain ritual purity. If the priest touched the man and he was dead then this meant that he would have to purify himself before going to the temple to perform sacrifices.

A Levi also helped in the temple (a bit like a deacon) and so had the same reasons. They both think he is dead.

But a Samaritan came past and he stopped. The Jews considered them as tainted. They were considered to be heretics, for not worshiping in the Temple of Jerusalem. They were never accepted and were in fact despised as outsiders.

To put the word Good and Samaritan together would have seemed like saying ‘a good terrorist’ or ‘a good drug dealer.’

There’s a difference between the lawyer’s question “Who is my neighbour?” and Jesus’ question: “Which of these three proved himself a neighbour to the victim?” Jesus has asked a question that requires a different answer.

The lawyer cannot bring himself to answer “The Samaritan” so instead he says “The one who takes pity on him.”

This lawyer struggles because he wants to answer in a way that will suit his way of helping others. But Jesus forbids us to set any such limits: our neighbour is any human being in need. This is Jesus telling us to love our enemies too. It’s a radical love that is not about feelings but choice and action.

There is a Jewish saying – why make things difficult in life when you can make them impossible? Loving our neighbours and especially our enemy is not impossible, Jesus did it and so can we.

On a deeper level this whole parable is, perhaps, a metaphor of our fall and our redemption. Jerusalem as a city on a hill top symbolises heaven, the holy city. Mount Zion. How we should be. Jericho is below sea level and in the bible represents the city of sin. It’s a city of dysfunction.

A man goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho. In other words moves away from heaven towards hell. This represents all of us. We are all fallen people and we await salvation. We are attacked by sin. This is a state we find ourselves in.

The Jewish priest and the Levi come by on the road. They symbolise worldly politics and various denominations that omit true belief in God. So a Samaritan arrives, gets down and pours oil and wine into his wounds carries him on his donkey to an inn and pays for his care. Jesus is this Good Samaritan.

An outsider, despised and rejected by the world yet he stoops down and pours into our wounded souls the oil and wine of the sacraments and the Eucharist. Jesus is the saviour. Only he can truly heal us. He brings the man to an inn where he pays for him. The inn represents the church; the place of healing; the hospital for wounded souls.

We cannot save ourselves. But the Good Samaritan came to save us. To bring us to the inn – the place of healing. He pays for us. He paid the price of our redemption by his own blood.

So this parable not only explains who are neighbours are and how we should treat them. It is in fact on a deeper level all about how God treats us through sending his only son.

The Good Samaritan came into this world to save us and we are gathered here in this inn today to give thanks for everything he has done for us