Today's readings: Deuteronomy 30, 10-14; Colossians 1, 15-20; Luke 10, 25-37.
It has become common to speak of religion as alienation. But when we come to terms with our modes of existence, we acknowledge that, religion apart, we can very easily be alienated from our own selves, from the way we live and from the needs of others.
Just like the lawyer who puts Jesus to the test, we seem to be asking "What are we to do to inherit eternal life?" How are we to find our way in daily life as post-Christians, as people whose standpoint may be globally religious but whose viewpoint of life may have become very complacent with all that calls us to review the way we do things?
This is what the parable of the Good Samaritan is meant to provoke in us today. There is so much violence around the world stripping people of their dignity and turning lies into truth. We've become so immune to suffering that we are seldom shocked. Considerations of personal safety, at times even for ritual purity itself, justify our not even crossing the road to look.
What is eternal life and how is it attainable? This is the core question in today's gospel that should make us think. Eternal life is not something we enquire about in this day and age. Neither do we seem that keen to ask what to do to inherit it.
Today we have other major concerns which seem to have more immediate implications, such as the quest for happiness, fulfilment, job satisfaction and meaningful relationships. Inheriting eternal life seems to be quite an alien issue.
The idea of eternal life as we conceive it might seem to suggest a form of existence that goes on and on. If we think of it as an infinite extension of life as we know it, then that may sound terribly boring.
But the lawyer's question basically concerns the heart's deepest longing. And addressing this longing cannot be dealt with superficially.
It is very unfortunate that our society, which practically 'knows it all' about everything, keeps silent when it comes to the most important and profound questions concerning our existence. And likewise it is very unfortunate that many today turn away from religion because of gross misconceptions.
Religion for many is presented in terms of laws and rules which many times seem to be at loggerheads with human nature itself, even going the opposite direction of what may seem to be our deepest longings.
This is not the way religion is depicted in the Deuteronomy reading, taken from a so-called discourse attributed to Moses, where God's law is presented as in no way "beyond your strength or beyond your reach". Religion is not an imposition from the outside. It is a proposal, an invitation to a journey that is mainly educational and basically respectful of our own humanity.
God's unfolding project for humanity was meant to provide humanity with a rule of life. But with the passing of time, and as the gospel parable illustrates, religion can easily prove to be a hindrance to man's fulfilment. The requisite for true fulfilment is closeness to God and this can never be taken for granted, not even in the practice of religion.
Keeping in mind the time and context in which Luke was writing his gospel, the undercurrent of the parable is the anti-Jewish polemic concerning the religious framework of inflated laws and prohibitions on one hand and, on the other hand, the Pharisees' double-faced piety.
The latter gave priority to observance of the law and to prescriptions governing cult over everything else, including what we might call the religion of the heart.
As St Paul reminds us in the second reading, the advent of Christ in history was not just a pious event but a cosmic one with profound implications for the way we should henceforth perceive things, not least our relationship with God. Christ is the novelty in absolute.
Today's parable speaks loud about our way of doing things. At times it is people we least expect who bring us to our senses and make us think.