Today’s readings: Deuteronomy 30, 10-14; Colossians 1, 15-20; Luke 10, 25-37.
Faith is authentic when it is humanised. The profession of faith in God by itself is not the guarantee of a good life, even if we as believers often repeat the slogan that ‘with or without God not all is the same’.
‘God’ is such an ambiguous term that love of God and love of neighbour are presented to us in the gospel as interchangeable. Love of God in Himself does not exist, and worship of God without genuine concern for the other is sheer idolatry. Theism has taught us many lies, which in turn have distorted and dehumanised our faith journey to the true God of Jesus Christ.
The parable Jesus gives in today’s gospel in answer to the question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ can be a powerful metaphor for the way we live today, and it can highlight the qualities that support a meaningful life. In the midst of all that upsets our daily living, we need a map to living a worthy life that flows out of moral character and purpose.
Nothing is more compelling than a good man, or a good woman, in an evil time. The so-called good Samaritan did not simply go out of his way to help. His lesson, more than one of generosity, reminds our own culture of things that, once abandoned, make us abandon who we are and those who really need us to speak on their behalf.
The current eurozone crisis has become a defining moment of our age. There are explanations to this crisis, some given, others will remain hidden. But the new forms of social depression, of misery, and of poverty that it generates are there for everyone to see. The man who “fell into the hands of brigands” in the parable is the symbol of all those who are today victims of this crisis which had its origins in bad politics and financial mismanagement.
But what are today’s dreams of transformation? Political revolutions, the type we observe daily from what remains of the Arab spring, no longer seem alluring. Religion, properly understood and lived, offers the wisdom not to understand the reason behind all this, but to provide the needed therapy in our society, where social cohesion is becoming the most difficult. Society still needs the bandages and the pouring of oil and wine on the wounds that distort the image God implanted in humanity.
Whoever we are, we all have a hunger for meaning in our lives. As Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput said recently in a lecture on the Year of Faith, wisdom consists in turning our hearts to the search for what satisfies that hunger. Foolishness, on the other hand, opts for what dulls that hunger without making it go away.
In today’s parable, Jesus is not simply speaking of what a good neighbour should do but of what makes a good neighbour. What is in crisis in this day and age is not generosity, even on a global level. What is really in crisis concerns not what and how much we give, but rather who we are to one another.
The parable, with its anti-ritual touch, shifts talk from the sphere of private virtue to the public square. It is indeed the public square that calls for Christian witness today. Much of today’s criticism of the Church is equivalent to our own criticism of the indifference of the official representatives of religion in the parable who, having noticed the wounded, simply pass by on the other side. Their attitude is a lie in the face of religion.
Luke’s gospel is all along extremely clear about this false and alienating religion. Religion is about mercy, which very often is prompted by kindness, or by pity or sympathy, but which is neither pity nor sympathy. Mercy is the support of justice.
Very often we are made to think the Western world is undergoing a moral collapse. But despite appearances, the West may be chronically suffering more from a collapse of justice. This is the gap religion should be filling.