Compassion for a Neighbor

Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho spans approximately 17 miles or 27 kilometers and descends sharply from the Judean hills to the Jordan Valley. Jerusalem is situated at an elevation of about 2,500 feet or 760 meters above sea level, while Jericho lies approximately 846 feet or 258 meters below sea level. This dramatic change in elevation contributes to the road's steep and rugged terrain, making it a challenging journey for travelers. This road was also notorious for its dangers. In fact, it was commonly known as the “red road” or “road of blood” because the desolate and rocky landscape provided ample hiding places for bandits and robbers, making it a perilous journey. The victims were usually people of limited means while the wealthy could pay for protection from the local tribal chieftains.

This is the setting for the parable that Jesus uses today to answer the question posed by a scholar of the law who was testing Jesus. “Who is my neighbor?” At the end of the story, Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers' victim?" The lawyer had been caught in his own words. When he admitted that it was the Samaritan who had acted with mercy and compassion, his attempt to catch Jesus in his knowledge of the commandments was thwarted. His admission that the Samaritan had acted as neighbor to the victim went against the common prejudices about Samaritans.

Samaria was a particular region of Palestine. It was populated by people who had been left behind when the Assyrians had destroyed Jerusalem hundreds of years before Jesus and had carried off the young, the strong, and the wealthy into exile. They left behind the elderly, the poor, and those who would have, in all likelihood, perished on their way to Babylon. In order to provide a way of life for themselves, those left behind intermarried with the local Canaanites who were despised by the children of Israel. When the exiles returned to Jerusalem, the descendants of those who had been left behind volunteered to help the returning Jews in rebuilding Jerusalem. However, their offer was refused by the Jews because they had broken the commandment regarding intermarriage with non-Jewish people. Consequently, the residents of Samaria worshiped in their own temple and called God by a different name. In their territory, they prized the well of Jacob near Sycar, and they worshiped God at Shiloh on Mt. Gerizim. As the years passed, enmity between the two Jewish sects continued to grow. Consequently, the scholar of the law was loath to admit that the Samaritan had been the one to act with compassion for the victim of the robbers.

We must also understand that the priest and the Levite who passed the bloodied victim on the opposite side of the road were obeying the laws of ritual purity. Touching a bloodied person or a corpse would have left them ritually impure. Since they were traveling down the road, they were probably returning home after having served in the temple as was their responsibility as members of the tribe of Levi. The victim had been stripped of his clothing and was lying at the side of the road, probably unable to speak. Consequently, the priest and the Levite had no way of knowing whether this man was a fellow Jew as they could not identify him by his dress or his accent. By passing him by, they were protecting themselves from the embarrassment that they would have incurred through their ritual impurity. Samaritans, on the other hand, were by their very nature ritually impure. Jesus adds the details that the Samaritan poured wine and oil over the wounds of the victim, wine and oil that would also have been ritually impure as well.

This brings us back to the original question. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" This question was a test because the lawyer was seeking to discredit Jesus as a teacher. Had Jesus answered incorrectly, the lawyer would have immediately shamed him in public. However, as we have read in other incidents, Jesus uses such testing questions to trap those who would discredit him.

I must mention that this parable is peculiar to the Gospel of St. Luke, who was a Gentile evangelist. As a Gentile, he was also an enemy of the Jews. We should not be surprised that this is the only Gospel which tells the story as it would not only give credit to the Samaritans, it would also give credit to others who were outsiders.

The last point that I wish to mention is the use of the word “compassion.” Jesus tells us that the Samaritan traveler was moved by compassion to come to the aid of the victim who laid at the side of the road. This word appears only three times (in the original Greek) in the entire New Testament. Each of the uses of this word appear in the Gospel of Saint Luke. Compassion is obviously an important attribute for anyone who acts on behalf of a neighbor as well as an important part of St. Luke’s writing.

Obviously, this Gospel parable is asking us to act with compassion toward our neighbor who, according to the story, is anyone who is a victim in our society today. Who are the bloodied victims of our world? Who are the ones who are in need of our compassion? As Jesus says to the student of the law, “Go and do likewise.”