The Charter for Justice and Love, given on the holy mountain as a blessing for the whole world had, over time, become a thicket of laws. The lawyer in today’s Parable knows how to read these laws, how to move around in this thicket, but he still doesn’t know how to move in the world. He can cite but he cannot act. Jesus guides the conversation with him, and with us, to give him, and us, the ability to move and act with Compassion.
The lawyer is hampered by a ‘do to get’ mind set. He is looking for a reward and for him actions only have any value if there is a reward attached to them. For Jesus, the act of compassion is its own reward. If the lawyer can combine understanding with compassion, he will already be enfolded in the eternal life he desires.
The lawyer has come to test Jesus. He calls Jesus ‘teacher’, but he does not want to be taught. After all he is a teacher himself. But, as is always the way of the Gospel, things don’t go as he planned. Jesus has quite literally pulled the carpet from under his feet and he must get back on his own ground. And so, he presses on with a new question – who is my neighbour? He loves the maze of opinions and the wrangling about obligations because they support his resistance to act. This fine print thinking is the air that legal minds breathe. But the same air only suffocates the Beloved Son of God.
Jesus must find a way to get past the lawyers’ defences and untangle his tangled mind. A priest and a Levite can also recite the Law but, like the lawyer, they cannot do it. Jesus paints a picture of a person ‘doing the love of God and of their neighbour’. The Samaritan is an enemy of the Jewish man who has been robbed and beaten. When people love their enemies, they reveal their inner connection to the Father who is the wellspring of Compassion. Without this connection, their compassion would be limited to family, friends, and tribe. But, if they are in sync with The God of All, they love all. The portrait of the Samaritan is, in reality, a portrait of God.
Notice how his love flows beyond ethnic boundaries. But notice more the creativity and extent of his care full ness. His love has no limits. He brings all of his ‘might’ to bear in his desire to restore the man’s life. His bandages, oil, wine, horse, money, time and his ability to recruit others are freely and abundantly brought to the work at hand. The limitlessness of the flow of care hidden in the words ‘I will pay whatever is needed’ can only be inspired by God.
Today’s Gospel is a clear invitation to gaze on the interior heart space of the characters in the story and to learn from them. While the other three can only act out of obligation, the Samaritan is white rafting the river of Mercy. His interior – contemplative – communion with the source of compassion expresses itself in his might, mind, heart, soul, and body. His love of God makes him ‘compassion ready’. The broken man only triggered what was already in him.
Jesus final injunction to ‘go and do likewise’ demands courage and creativity. Carefully note, however that the lawyer has disappeared. He is nowhere to be found. He has ‘left the scene’. Now there is only Jesus and me. And now that the lawyer has gone, our own cover may have been blown. It is we who are receivers of this last injunction, ‘go and do likewise’, and the next step is up to us.
