Spirituality of the Readings

Spirituality of the Readings 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time C July 14, 2013 Reading I: Deuteronomy 30:10-14 Respons. Psalm: 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37 or 19:8, 9, 10, 11 Reading II: Colossians 1:15-20 Gospel: Luke 10:25-37

Beloved of God

If we listen carefully to Sunday’s readings we will hear our relation to God very gently stated. In the First Reading Moses explains how simple God's command is. I would like to quote his words because they are beautiful. He says that God’s command is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky, that you should say, ‘Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’ Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’ The commandment of the Lord is very near to us, already in our hearts and in our mouths. We have only to carry it out. But what is this commandment? Jesus points to the answer in the Gospel. There, a lawyer asks Jesus to boil the whole law down to a single saying. Ever the teacher, Jesus asks the answer from the man, who says by rote: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Not bad. “You have answered correctly,” Jesus says; “Do this and you will live.” But the man wants specifics. He is digging. Who is my neighbor, he asks. What would be your answer to this question? Who do you say your neighbor is, in the sense that the bible means that word? Jesus gives the lawyer a parable to chew on. You know it, the story we call “the good Samaritan.” An Israeli man is mugged on the way down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The robbers “beat him terribly,” an awful description. A priest and a Levi each pass by the victim splayed out on the road, and they look the other way. I think of how many times I have turned away from poverty stricken people. Do I give them help they beg for, or do I simply admire the imaginative stories they tell me in order to get money? What about you? Then I think of the evening when I clumsied my shoulder into a heavy fall from the icy curb right down onto the pavement, full weight on solid cement. Two big men each stopped their two cars right in the road and ran over to help me up, guys in no way connected to the university where I live and work. They were like the Samaritan Jesus tells of. He did not just walk by but helped the beaten man in a big way. Notice, this Samaritan was from the same tribe whose towns all rejected Jesus two Sundays ago. Can an enemy be your neighbor? Can a stranger? How about an estranged member of your family? Or, or … The Samaritan “was moved with compassion at the sight” of his supposed enemy. He poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. He told an Innkeeper to “take care of him,” and left money. Jesus then asks his questioner which of the men was a neighbor, the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan? “Go and do likewise,” he says. This is not “too mysterious or remote,” is it? John Foley S. J.