Homily for Sunday- July 11, 2010

Most likely, for more years than we would like to count, we have heard this gospel that is called the Good Samaritan. But we have always listened to it or read it, in terms of stereotypes, i.e. there are three bad guys...the lawyer, the priest, and the Levite. And there is one good guy, the Samaritan.
Perhaps it’s time to rescue this gospel from that stereo-typing because, as a matter of fact, it really has something different to say and is much more contemporary than we would like to think. Basically, it’s dealing with ethical and moral issues.
I would like to start with the lawyer, who is a good guy. He is not trying to trip Jesus, nor is he trying to make a fool of Him. What he is doing was standard fare of that day. Jesus was an itinerant rabbi. In the universities, the people would come up, particularly the lawyers, and they would all sit down and they would bounce the questions and answers around, taping the mind of the master to see what he would say. Much the same as they do in law schools today.
So the lawyer was not being sneaky, nor was he being evil; he was simply asking a standard question. And in response, therefore, Jesus gives an answer, but, what he does, he tosses the answer back to His audience, like a good teacher, and basically says, when you think of it, “We have some ethical and moral issues here that are not clear, so let’s think about them.” And then he tells them the story of the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was robbed, beaten, most of his clothes were taken, and he was left for dead.
The first one to come down the road was the priest. But, the priest is a good guy, not as we’re used to thinking of him; he isn’t some insensitive person. One has to look at the issues here. You have to remember that in those days, the priest was charged with ministering to the people and offering the sacrifice in the temple. It was something that the whole community expected of him. More than that, in ancient days, the priest was Social Security and Welfare and Medicaid all wrapped up in one person. He was the conduit for charities and care for people. People depended upon him.
Now, there were certain things that would prevent him from doing his jobs, which the people needed him to perform. And one of those things, according to Jewish law, was to come within thirty steps of the dead. If he touched a dead body, he was made ritually unclean, and then he could not perform the prayers at the temple, and he was disqualified for a good period of time from his work. When we understand that, it puts the priest in a different light; he is no longer an insensitive person. But, there is a man lying there and as far as the priest is concerned, he is dead. He can’t tell whether it’s a fellow Jew because most of the man’s clothes have been taken. If it were a non-Jew, he wouldn’t even think of going near him because for the Jews of that time, a neighbor was only another Jew.
So, he was faced here with an ethical question: “If I go over to make certain he is dead, then I become ritually unclean, and then what good am I to the rest of my people? I can’t help them and I can’t service them. So, many people will be hurt, or certainly disenfranchised if I touch his body. The man is dead anyway. What more could I do?”
The chances are very good that 100 percent of the audience who was listening to the story agreed with the priest’s decision. It was eminently sensible. Why should he jeopardize so many people by touching a dead body, which he would not help anyway? Well, Jesus comes along in this discussion, and he opens the door to the possibility that the priest made the wrong ethical deision. Jesus suggests that the priest made a good decision, but that there was a better one. Jesus raises the possibility that although the priest would be legally unclean, there were honest to goodness legal issues here that the priest had to consider. Still, there were other elements of the situation that had to be taken into account. Jesus offered compassion and love as factors that might bear upon the priest’s decision and his moral quandary. So, what you have here is a good person who is following the rules, and Jesus comes along and says, “There may be other ways to measure your conduct.”
This is a very contemporary situation. For example, doing business today can put unbearable pressures upon people. The result is that they are often force to act in ways that are inhumane and hurtful to others in order to close the deal, in order to close the contract, in order to meet deadlines, and for a host of other reasons people are often sacrificed.
People are treated as objects or things and it’s good business. But, Jesus raises the ethical question: “But are good business and sensibleness the only measurements?” To be compassionate often doesn’t make good economic sense. But that’s the way love is. Love often doesn’t make sense.
Next, we have another goody guy, the Levite. He comes along shortly after the priest and he was more like a deacon, or chairperson or head of a parish council. He knew that the priest had gone ahead of him because, in those days, the roads were so dangerous that they knew which roads were traveled, and in small villages like that, he knew the priest had just preceded him from the temple, maybe by half and hour.
So, he comes along, and he sees the man, who looked apparently dead, and he thinks to himself, rightly, “Well, the priest went by and he didn’t do anything, and he didn’t think it was necessary to stop. And the priest knows what he is doing, so why should I stop?”, which is very good sense.
But we have another contemporary issue. The Levite did not have authority. He deferred to the man who did, the priest. His tactic was to go along with someone else’s judgment. If the person in authority over you makes a decision, then you just follow orders. What could be more reasonable? But Jesus comes along and says, “If you and I as Christians continue to use that excuse, then we’ll continue to have people use excuses that say, ‘I’m looking the other way, but I’m not in charge.” What pain this causes to people! Blame someone else for what should or should not be done.
“This is not my department. I’m not in charge. I know that something is wrong, there are some bad decisions and maybe even evil, but know, I’m only the underling. I’m only the Levite. I am following orders. Don’t blame me.” That was Eichmann’s plea at the Nuremberg trials.
And Jesus says, “That’s not good enough.” Now you see what is the meaning of this story? It’s not an evil Levite; it’s a good Levite, who very sensibly said, “If my boss didn’t bother, why should I?” But, Jesus says, “There has to be a better measurement than that.”
Finally, we have the Samaritan. He seemed to identify with the body because that was figuratively himself. He was an outcast. He was in a segregated society. He could touch the body 50 times and he would be no worse off. The Jewish people for the time despised the Samaritans, so whether he helped or not, it wouldn’t change his status one bit. So, mentioning this, Jesus also brings up the whole issue of prejudice. And the audience would squirm at that.
Anyway, Jesus comes back to the question, “Now, who was neighbor to the one who was robbed?” The lawyer’s reluctant admission is that it must be the Samaritan, but his legal mind says that the priest and Levite were right. And Jesus has to concur. As far as they went, they were right. But, what Jesus proposes is that we have to go farther.
This gospel is about ethics and morals, and it’s a gospel that says that compassion comes over the rule, and love is over the law, and integrity is over authority. And, to live that way is to live profoundly like Christ. But, be ready to take the consequences of that.
Elizabeth and Matt Fitzsimons longed to start a family. Unable to have a child of their own, they decided to adopt a baby girl from China. After a 14-month application process, they were approved and received a picture of their daughter, whom they name Natalie.
They traveled to China and, at a hotel in Nanchang, Elizabeth and Matt received little Natalie, but something was wrong. The baby had a large scar along her back. There was a rattle in her chest. She was thin and pale. She was a year old but could not sit up or hold a bottle. She suffered from the worst case of diaper rash anyone had ever seen.
A doctor was summoned. He confirmed that the baby was severely ill. The scar was the result of a poorly performed surgery to remove a tumor from Natalie’s spine. She would be paralyzed from the waist down; she had a form of spina bifida, as well.
The embarrassed orphanage director assured the couple that “in cases like these, we can rematch with another baby.’ The process would be expedited and the Fitzsimons would go home on schedule.
Elizabeth and Matt were devastated at what bringing Natalie home would entail. But, as Elizabeth wrote about the experience in the New York Times (May 13, 2007): “How could we leave her? Had I given
birth to a child with these conditions, I wouldn’t have left her in the hospital. I pictured myself boarding the plane with some faceless replacement child and then explaining to friends and family that she wasn’t Natalie, that we had left Natalie in China because she was too damaged, that the deal had been a healthy baby, and she was not.
“I know this was my test, my life's worth distilled to this moment. I was shaking my head NO before they finished explaining. We didn’t want another baby, I told them. We wanted our baby, the one sleeping right over there. She’s our daughter, I said. We love her. Matt, who had been sitting on the bed, lifted his glasses, and wiping tears from his eyes, nodded in agreement.”
This story has a happy ending. Two years later, Natalie has battled back to develop into a bright, happy little girl. The diagnosis by the Chinese doctor proved to be wrong. She is walking and talking and doing fine.
Elizabeth writes: “It’s tempting to think that our decision was validated by the fact that everything turned out to be OK. But, for me, that’s not the point. Our decision was right because she was our daughter and we loved her. We would not have chosen the burdens we anticipated…but, we are stronger than we thought.”
The story of the Good Samaritan begins with a vision that mirrors the vision of God, a vision that sees every man, woman, and child as a son and daughter of God, or brother and sister in Christ. No one is expendable, no one is ever written off; everyone matters, everyone counts. As the Samaritan traveler took the beaten and robbed man into his care, as Elizabeth and Matt welcomed Natalie into their home and hearts come what may, Christ calls us to embrace that same vision: to recognize and honor the sacred dignity that every human being possesses as a child of God.
What a powerful gospel when we understand it correctly!