A Common Humanity, Less we Forget
Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37
Come to think of it, Jesus who never had a track record of university or formal education teaches a lawyer, who should know better, “who is my neighbor?” It is good to know that today’s gospel opens with the caveat “to test him” (Luke 10:25). Clearly, the lawyer makes academic formation distinctive from life formation. As a lawyer, he was educated and placed on a social pedestal higher than others, and he fails to see what makes him the same with others, but comes to “test” Jesus’ level of education and intelligence. It is at this point that Jesus teaches him and us today about life, and not about the academia. Simply put, there are some things that we cannot do for ourselves, but others can do them for us. An example is being transported to the hospital after a ghastly car-crash or serious illness. Our certificates are not designed to do that for us, but other human beings.
The stretch of 25km road from Jerusalem to Jericho is definitely a Judean territory and any Samaritan plying that road is a stranger – he is far removed from his hometown. Moreover, he is a target for attack because the Samaritans and the Judeans/Jews have been historic enemies. The Samaritan saw a probable stranger in a strange/Judean territory battered and left for dead and saw himself in that man, so he helped him, just as he would like himself to be helped should that same thing happen to him. Common identity with anyone in need is the Samaritan’s approach to other human beings – to neighbors.
Our vision of life turns blurry, because we concentrate on what separates us from others and not on what unites us. This is the problem of the lawyer, in our gospel reading. As a response, Jesus suggests 3 causes of cataracts that blur human vision of life and reorient it towards segregation: profession (lawyer), religion (Levite) and status (priesthood); and the only source of surgical operation for life-vision cataract is being a stranger/Samaritan. Typical of lawyers, doctors and Psychologists, they listen to no one but everyone must listen to them. Priests are also in the same category of know-it-all; after all, they adjudicate on behalf of God. And, Levites who form a particular class/tribe in the religion of Judaism, God’s special children to the rejection of others, are the holier-than-thou group. These 3 cataracts separate us from others and put us in a special class and blur our vision of a common humanity.
It will be tragic should we imaging that the lawyer, Levite, priest and Samaritan is somebody else other than myself! Each time I treat another person differently than myself because he is not a fellow Christian, I am a Levite and I practice superiority of religion. When I look down on others and make a distinction between them and myself because I am more educated and I know-it-all, I am the lawyer of today’s gospel. Those moments when I prove holier-than-thou and consider others sinners and I am the only saint around, I am the priest of today’s gospel. Jesus is very happy when I consider myself a stranger upon the road of life, where I could be battered by my own sins, cheated and betrayed by others, even physically abused by fellow human beings, yet I still consider life worth living and worth saving for those on the brinks of despair and suicide.
This acceptance of our humanity is what Jesus teaches us through the second reading. God refuses the distance that separates him from us, so he takes flesh and dwells among us as a fellow human being, as a neighbor. He accepts Simon of Cyrene to help him carry his cross, because as a human being, he is tired and needs help. Like every child, he suckles, when hungry and eats food with his disciples even after his resurrection; he cries, when he feels pains; and needs friends and neighbors to bury his dead body at death. This power of oneness and the ability to recognize oneness necessitate the humanity of Jesus Christ. In the words of our second reading: “For in him all the fullness [of God] was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven” (Colossians 1:20). This same reconciliation is what Jesus teaches the lawyer today, that he is human like the rest of humanity.
Through what Jesus did for our salvation, there is a new approach to prayer beyond “prayer is the raising up of our heart and mind to God” or “Prayer is talking to God.” The consequence of these definitions of prayer is that, quite often, we raise/lift our hearts up to heaven without looking around us. We are very much in love with the invisible God, and we wish and hope that he remain invisible so that he may continue to intervene in our needs without any efforts from our part. Well, God became Man in Jesus Christ; this singular act changes the meaning of prayer from “talking” to God and “lifting up” our heart to God. We are invited to open our hearts to other human beings, and we should make ourselves available to be “talked to” by others because God wants to and does talk to us through our neighbors, especially through their needs which we should take care of like the Samaritan.
The distance between God and human beings is measured by either the presence or absence of the “rule of law,” according to our first reading: “For this command that I enjoin on you today . . . it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” “The rule of law” is measured by the happiness of human beings because of what we do for each other, rather than what we avoid doing for others. This is the perspective of our first and the gospel readings. The summary of the laws and precepts of God as “love of God and neighbor” makes love the overriding meaning of every law. The happiness and consolation we bring to others demonstrate the closeness of God to us; and, instead of a segregated humanity, we must remember to build “A Common Humanity, Less we Forget”.
Assignment for the Week:
Visit a sick person this week.