Sunday Gospel
Reflection
July 13, 2025, Cycle C
Luke 10:25-37
Reprinted by permission of the, “Arlington Catholic
Herald.”
Good Samaritan
By Fr. Richard A. Miserendino
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Often, the most familiar
parts of the
Bible are the most revolutionary.
Within them, God’s grace
hides in plain
sight. It’s veiled from our eyes by the fact that we’ve “heard
it all before”
and that our vision is often limited to what we’re looking to
see. This is
definitely the case with our Gospel today. Everyone hears the
parable of the
Good Samaritan, and our minds jump right to the (seemingly)
obvious conclusion:
We should do good deeds for people in need. Jesus would want
that. End of
story.
But the heart of the
parable is a
literal revolution. How so? The passage begins with some basics
about salvation
given by a scholar of the law: Love God above all things and
your neighbor as
yourself. Then comes the question — “But who is my neighbor?”
It’s a fairly
common question which touches on a fairly popular issue:
justice. So many in
our world are concerned about justice, equality, and equity, and
rightly so.
Yet, often the conversation gets reduced to, “But who is my
neighbor?” Who am I
legally required to help? What do other people owe me? What are
my rights?
Justice is principally something done or owed to “me” as an
individual.
The legal scholar’s
question provokes
the parable that we call the Good Samaritan. The revolution
begins with the
fact that the hero of the story is a Samaritan, who would have
been seen as an
undesirable person at the time. That alone should clue us into
the fact that
Jesus is seeking to give our world and perspective a spin. We
leave here the
usual interpretations of the passersby and the coins and
ministrations of the
Samaritan to other commentaries. It is the end of the story that
is the most
head-spinning, though. It comes with a question from Jesus in
return: “Which of
the three (priest, Levite or Samaritan) was neighbor to the
man?”
Catch what happens here:
Neighbor is
converted from a noun to a verb — something done for others
rather than
something depending on their relation to us. The perspective of
justice has
been reoriented radically. Rather than asking “What am I owed?”,
Jesus
challenges us to ask: Who should I aid? This tracks with St.
Thomas Aquinas’
definition of justice: “The virtue by which we render another
person their
due.” In contrast to so much of the world that seeks to fill its
own bowl
first, justice and “being neighbor” is primarily concerned with
looking to the
needs of others and being prompt to place ourselves at their
service. It’s a
moral revolution, for sure.
Yet, there’s a final
note we can add
here: Typically, when the Good Samaritan is considered within
the tradition of
the church, the Samaritan is considered as a type of symbol of
Christ, and we
in our broken humanity as the robbed man. We then are enjoined
to imitate
Christ. This is definitely true and an aspect of the parable. We
can call this
the classic interpretation. Yet, it is also worth noting that
Christ never
specifically identifies himself with any one character
exclusively.
Thus, it is also
possible to consider
Christ in another place in the Gospel: as the robbed man
himself. Consider
Christ leaves the riches of heaven (Jerusalem) to come on a
mercy mission to us
here on earth (Jericho). Therein, he is promptly set upon by
robbers (us and
our sins) and left for dead. There is a solidarity between the
robbed man and
the Crucified Lord — ravaged by sin and left for dead. The
Father (the
Samaritan) pours out his love and ministrations in the
Resurrection.
This opens an additional
revolutionary
perspective to the parable that solidifies the classical
interpretation above.
What saves us is not mere do-gooder deeds as neighbor to
strangers. Rather,
what saves is our being configured to Christ by baptism and
entering into the
Father’s love. The classical interpretation draws us into the
body and ministry
of Christ through love. Gathered into that same love, we then
minister to
Christ present in the poor and our neighbor, the second
interpretation. The
Good Samaritan shows the fullness of Christian life. We are
healed in Christ.
And what saves is that healing, which sets us free to be
neighbor and minister
to Christ imaged in the very people we serve. By that standard
we will be
judged. It’s a conversion of heart and a revolution of love if
we only have
eyes to see it and hearts to receive it.