How do we inherit eternal life?: 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

           The scholar of the law asked one of the most important questions any human person can ask, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

            Moses told the Israelites that this answer was something they already knew: “For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you.  It is not up in the sky…nor is it across the sea…No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.”

Jesus answered this question with the parable of the Good Samaritan, a parable we all know well.

            The characters in this parable say a lot.  The first two—the Levite and the priest—misunderstood the heart of the law and instead sought to fulfill the letter of the law.  They avoided the robbed and beaten man as it would have been a breach in Jewish cleanliness to approach a man who was bleeding without knowing if he was a Jew or not.  The Samaritan—one of the hated members of the Jews’ enemies—acted with mercy and compassion, soothing his wounds and caring for this downtrodden man.

            It is important to remember that the Levite and the priest were not actually living the Law to its full.  The scholar of the law cited the heart of the commandments well—“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.”  Yet this same man stumbled in that he wanted to be justified in his own life.  He was looking for a checklist of do’s and don’ts from Jesus rather than the point of his relationship with God and neighbor.

            This man probably did not at first recognize who Jesus was.  Most likely he thought Jesus was a good man or even a teacher (as he addressed Jesus).  Yet Jesus is no ordinary good man or teacher: “Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible…”

            Jesus came to blow open the doors of the Old Law.  He made it clear that the heart of our lives ought not be a checklist of do’s and don’ts—in which many Catholics think our Christian lives consist—but of being men and women of love and mercy.

            After telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus asked the scholar, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”  He answered Jesus wisely, “The one who treated him with mercy.”  Jesus told him, as he tells each of us today, “Go and do likewise.”