Reflection on the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 10: 25-37

What must I do to gain eternal life?  How do I love God more?  How do I find God?  Or even, how can I be happy? These are questions that people have asked for a long time. The scholar of the law who approached Jesus certainly wasn’t the first to ask them.

Jesus draws out of the man the answer – love God and love your neighbor.

Jesus says, “Right. Go do it.” Can you imagine how this very knowledgeable person felt at this point?  We know the feeling. We think we’ve got the upper hand and then find out we are caught. “Just go, do what you told me one should do to have eternal life, and all will be well.” This scholar of the law no doubt is quick-witted so he tries to get himself out of the situation. “Who is my neighbor?” he asks. Jesus wins the next round, too. He has the boldness to choose as his example of the one who does right, someone whom this scholar of the law would probably place furthest from God — a Samaritan.  (Samaritans were mixed-blood people — part Jewish, part Assyrian. They didn’t accept all the books of the bible and were hated in first-century Palestine.)

Jesus was a match for the cunning scholar. In Jesus’ story the hated Samaritan acts with compassion — a requirement of Jewish law — while the priest and Levite or deacon walk by. Most likely, though, the priest and the Levite were bright and good and prayerful people.

From our perspective in the 21st century United States, we side with the Samaritan and delight that Jesus got the better of the scholar of the law. We don’t like prejudice. It is unreasonable.  

But we have to look at our own culture. Last Thursday on the way to Louisville I was listening to one of the retreat talks given in March at Gethsemani. The retreat director, Father Donald Cozzens, reminded the monks that women in the U.S. were allowed to vote only about 80 years ago. Further, he said, not many monks or priests were disturbed very much by that kind of prejudice against women. Some 150 years ago many in this country were not disturbed that some people owned other people. He said he is friends with the Carmelite nuns in Baltimore, a wonderful and alive community, and one day he held in his hand a letter, dated in the 1790s, from Bishop John Carroll, the early bishop of Baltimore, to the prioress of the Carmelite monastery in Baltimore. It read, “Dear Mother Superior, Welcome to the diocese of Baltimore. To help you in your mission I would like to make a gift to you.” The gift was two slaves — a woman and her daughter. Bishop Carroll went on, “The older woman may never be released. The younger woman may be released if you choose to do so on the condition that she marry immediately. With my prayers and best wishes and gratitude to you for coming to the diocese of Baltimore.” Father Cozzens said he read the letter to the monks, not to embarrass Bishop Carroll or the Carmelite sisters. They were good and bright and prayerful people. But he used the letter as an example of how God’s spirit is raising our consciousness. Think 80 or 150 years from now, he said, when people look back at the turn of this century, at our times. They might say, “These were bright, good, prayerful people. Why didn’t they see what we see now?”  

Our awareness, our prayerfulness, our faithfulness now, can help raise the consciousness of this country. We hold this law of love in our hearts. We need to let it raise our own consciousness. Then we will have found eternal life.