The Gospel passage for this Sunday includes the famous “Parable of the Good Samaritan,” and it contains the most important question that could be asked. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” No other question is more fundamental to our condition in a fallen world. It is another way of asking, “what is the Gospel?” A scholar who was an expert in the Law of Moses (here, called a “lawyer”) asked the question. The answer, of course, is found in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who, even though we are sinners, loves us, came down to us and gave Himself to heal us and restore us to eternal life.
To answer the Biblical scholar’s question, the Lord starts with the teaching found in the Old Testament: “What is written in the Law?” The answer summarizes the two central teachings of the Mosaic Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” At this point, the Lord allows the lawyer to ask another question: “And who is my neighbor?” The lawyer does not yet see that all people, especially those with no one to help them, are his neighbors.
Jesus then tells a parable (a vivid story) that includes many common elements of that time. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho (still there today) was notoriously filled with robbers because it was a deserted road. A man is beaten and robbed, and the religious leaders (a Priest and a Levite) pass by and ignore him, but a Samaritan takes care of him. As the Fathers explain, these elements become symbols of spiritual realities that speak of Christ and our human condition. The Samaritans were an ethnic and religious group considered by the Jewish peo ple as religiously unclean. This hostility was deeply rooted in the history of the Old Tes tament when the Kingdom of Israel was divided in the 10th century BC. However, as the Lord Jesus emphasizes in the parable, it is the Samaritan who helped the Jewish man, half dead on the ground.
The Samaritan was literally “moved with compassion,” so he took care of his wounds and took him to the Inn (a lodge). There, the Samaritan provided for the wounded man’s healing process and paid the innkeeper for ongoing care until he would return.
The Samaritan represents Christ. The man who was beaten and robbed is nameless because he represents all humanity (in Greek, ἄνθρωπος). As the Church Fathers see it, this becomes a symbol of humanity’s journey from Paradise to the fallen world. It points to the Lord’s own journey of coming down to us in His Incarnation: “coming in the likeness of men . . . He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). He did so to help and heal us when we were in our deepest need. The Lord came to save us when sin had beaten and robbed us, leaving us half-dead. The love of God came to us in Christ, and He does not pass by or ignore us in 2 our pain.
The Good Samaritan used wine and oil to treat the man’s wounds. Wine and oil were commonly used for that purpose at that time (to sterilize and soften). This points to the Sacraments, especially the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, and the anoint ing in Baptism and Holy Unction (the Greek word for oil, ἔλαιον, is related to the word for mercy, ἔλεος. “Kyrie Eleison” is translated as “Lord, have mercy” — but literally means, “Lord, pour on Your healing oil”).
Just as the Samaritan rescued the man, the Lord heals our wounds and takes us to the Inn to be healed. As Saint John Chrysostom says, “the Inn is the Church, which receives travelers, who are tired with their journey through the world, and oppressed with the load of their sins; where the wearied traveler casting down the burden of his sins is re lieved, and after being refreshed is restored with wholesome Food.” This Food is Christ’s very own Body and Blood.
The Lord rescues us from sin and death and places us in His Church, among His people, through the Holy Sacraments. In the Church, we worship God and He gives us His grace to be illumined, purified, and united to Him. He fills our hearts with His love and peace. He restores us from brokenness into wholeness. He transforms us into His likeness. The Lord is always with us, and yet He promises that He will come back again on the Last Day to restore all things, to establish His eternal kingdom, on that day that will never end. In the meantime, He gives “two denarii” to the Church, which symbolizes the gifts and talents we have been given to bless and serve one another. God gives us strengths not for ourselves, but to fill a need around us. We serve Him by serving one another, and in this way, we grow in the likeness of Christ and edify His Church.
Our neighbor is every human being. A true neighbor shows mercy to others in concrete ways. By loving others, we love God in whose image they are created. We are all neighbors to one another, and this becomes particularly necessary to recognize when we encounter people who seem different from us. We encounter people from other rac es, social conditions, countries, languages, cultures, worldviews, and even religions. The Samaritan in the parable was marginalized by the very people he loved and helped.
Jesus was marginalized, disdained, and killed by the people He loved. Yet, He re mained obedient to His Father, Who sent Him into the world for the salvation of humanity. We, too, may be marginalized and disdained when seeking to help others. We may be re paid with evil for good and question why we serve others. Such crises are an opportunity to examine ourselves and discover our deeper motivations. In such moments, we can ask ourselves if we are serving others to get something in return, or serving them out of free, voluntary obedience to Christ, Who came to serve and not be served.
God’s compassion is not an abstract ideal. It is real and active; He acts through the Church, through His members who carry on His salvific work (leading to grace and salvation) through their faith and practice. We become like Christ when we serve others: when we provide for their material needs, protect the weak, care for the poor, and provide 3 for their healing and restoration, of the body and of the soul. We love our neighbors by drawing close to them, especially through heartfelt prayer. The neighbor is the one who shows mercy and helps, as well as the one who receives mercy and help.
To truly love God is to love all people. To imitate Christ is to go to others, bandage their wounds, pour wine and oil on them, and carry their burdens. We show kindness and compassion by stopping and being attentive to those in need, whoever they may be. We imitate Jesus Christ by removing cultural, racial, gender, and religious barriers to reach out to others and provide healing when needed. He shows mercy to us because of His goodness, while we show mercy to one another because of God’s goodness given to us. He has compassion on us so that we may enjoy Him thoroughly, while we have compas sion on another so that we may thoroughly enjoy Him. This is the inheritance of eternal life.
