Coronavirus Talk 17
Let us begin with an Our Father
Reviewing briefly, the most important thing Jesus teaches us is about mercy, the mercy that is both a gift that God gives us “always, everywhere, in every situation, no matter what,” and the mercy this is our duty, the way we return God’s love for us by showing mercy to others “always, everywhere, in every situation, no matter what.”
Jesus uses two powerful mirror parables to bring home to us the dimensions of that duty. Remember that the mirror parable is the one which asks us to find ourselves in the story. The first comes from Matthew’s gospel and it is the very last parable Jesus tells, the summary of all his teaching.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels of heaven, he will sit upon his royal throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. Then he will separate them into two groups, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The sheep he will place on his right hand, the goats on his left. The king will say to those on his right: ‘Come. You have my father’s blessing. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me. I was ill and you comforted me, in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the just will ask: ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or see you thirsty and give you drink? When did we welcome you away from home or clothe you in your nakedness? When did we visit you when you were ill or in prison? The king will answer them: ‘I assure you, as often as you did it for one of the least brothers or sisters, you did it for me.”
“Then he will say to those on his left: ‘Out of my sight, you condemned, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels! I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was away from home and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing. I was ill and in prison and you did not come to comfort me.’ Then they in turn will ask, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or away from home or naked or ill or in prison and not attend to you in your needs?’ He will answer them: ‘I assure you, as often as you neglected to do it to one of these least ones, you neglected to do it to me.’ These will go off to eternal punishment and the just to eternal life. – Matthew 25: 31-46
Where do you see yourself in the parable? Are you a sheep or a goat? Where do you want to be in the parable? What do you need to do to be where you want to be in the parable? The messages to the righteous sheep and the selfish goats are basically opposites. Jesus gave the same checklist of human needs, and the difference was that the sheep fulfilled these needs for others and the goats did not. When Jesus ticks off all the things he said the sheep had done for him, they are confused. They knew they had not done any of these things for the king. And he tells them that whenever they served any of the least, the invisible, the ones that do not matter, they were serving him.
The lesson is obvious: if we are to be the blessed sheep, not the cursed goats, we need to allow ourselves to recognize the needs of others and work to fill them. We need to strive to treat everyone we meet as if we were serving Christ himself. And we must do it until it becomes so natural, we do not even recognize we are doing it. The duty of mercy means serving others with compassion and not for show, giving freely to those who can do nothing for us in return. As St. John says in one of his letters in the New Testament, “We will never be able to love the God we cannot see if we fail to love the brother or sister that we can see.
This next parable is the perfect example of what John meant when he said that. The parable of the Good Samaritan is found only in Luke’s gospel, and, along with the parable of the prodigal son we took last night, is probably the most loved among all of Jesus’ teaching.
On one occasion a lawyer stood up to pose this problem to Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him: “What is written in the law? How do you read it? He replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said: “You have answered correctly. DO this and you shall live.” But because the lawyer wanted to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell prey to robbers. They stripped him, beat him, and then went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road; he saw him and continued on. Likewise, there was a Levite who came the same way, he saw him and went on. But a Samaritan who was journeying along came upon him and was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached him and dressed his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. He then hoisted him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, where he cared for him. The next day he took out two silver pieces and gave them to the innkeeper with the request: ‘Look after him, and if there is any further expense, I will repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the man who fell in with robbers?” The lawyer replied, “The one who treated him with compassion.” Jesus said to him, “Then go and do likewise.” – Luke 10: 25-37
In the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, sometimes the right are wrong. Sometimes the bad are good. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus turns out the insider and exalts the outsider.
Where are you in the parable? Are you one of the two holy people who passed by the man or are you the outsider, the stranger, who stopped to help? Two religious professionals, the priest and the Levite, neglect a fellow Jew who was almost beaten to death, while the traditional and hated enemy of the Jews, a Samaritan, the ultimate outsider, was “moved with compassion” to help him.
Jesus’ hearers would have been shocked and infuriated that the hero of Jesus’ story is a Samaritan.
But shock value is not the only reason Jesus tells the story. He intends the story to shed light on the larger issue of what our faith is all about, what is essential for us to receive eternal life.
Luke writes that the doctor of the law “stood up to test Jesus” with a question: “What must I do to gain eternal life?” This was not an honest inquiry; it was meant to trap Jesus into saying something heretical.
When Jesus asks him what the Scriptures say , the expert in the law quotes two passages from the Old Testament which cover his very question: Deuteronomy 6:5 on the love of God and Leviticus 19:18 about the love of Neighbor.
The expert’s answer is exactly right. “You have answered correctly,” said Jesus. But his answer is a stark reminder that being religiously correct, being able to quote chapter and verse, is not at all the same thing as showing mercy. Knowing the good is not good enough without doing the good. Then the doctor of the law, to save himself some embarrassment for asking a stupid question, tries to deflect Jesus’ response by trying to limit his responsibility for a stranger by defining just who is and who is not a neighbor.
So, as Jesus ends the parable, he flips the man’s question. The right question is not so much: “Who is my neighbor?” The right question is: “Who acted like a neighbor?” Once again, the expert has the correct answer: “the one who had mercy.” But the story ends here, and we never learn whether this man moved from BEING right to DOING the right, whether he allowed Jesus’ teaching to move his heart toward action on behalf of another.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way: “The priest and the Levite ask themselves: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But when the Good Samaritan came by, he asked himself: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?
That is the difference. Is stopping to help about you or is it about him? And Jesus concludes the encounter by saying: “Go and do likewise.” He did not say go and think or plan or dream or deliberate likewise, he said told us to go and DO likewise.
Throughout the centuries the Church has always suggested ways for believers to fulfill our duty of mercy. We call them the works of mercy: deeds that assist others in their precise and specific needs, whether their needs are physical or spiritual. These are not options for the Christian believer; no one of us is exempt from the duty of mercy. Rendering deeds of mercy is essential for salvation.
Someone, probably someone who was writing a doctoral thesis or otherwise had a lot of time on their hands, kept a count of all the words Shakespeare used in his poems to determine which words he used most frequently. The result came out a sentence: Love – is – all. Love is all.
So, all of Jesus’ teaching boils down to just one word: love. The love that shows itself in deeds, as St. Ignatius would say. The love that is our attempt to love God back for all the love He has given to us by sharing that love faithfully and joyfully to everyone, of course, but, in a special way, to share that love with the least, with the ones most in need.
It strikes me that, once these restrictions on our free living are lifted and we resume the life we once knew, there will be abundant opportunities for all of us to come to the aid of those in need, both on the physical and spiritual levels. That is where we will be able to begin to truly know whether we have learned from Jesus, whether we share God’s preferential option for the lost, and whether we can imitate Jesus as we follow his example of extending a mercy toward others that is genuine, spontaneous and free.
Then, on that final Judgment Day, we will line up on the right side of the King’s throne.
So, we have covered Jesus the healer and Jesus the teacher; and, the last three talks, we will look at some of the miracles Jesus performed.
Let us end once more with a Hail Mary and a blessing.