Church of the
Annunciation

Lawyers ask questions as we well know from live court room drama on TV. In our Gospel, a lawyer, a scholar of Mosaic Law, asks Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus puts it back to him: “How do you read the law?” He replies with verses from Hebrew Scripture: “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, being, strength and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus remarks that he has answered correctly. But as lawyers do, he asks Jesus a second question: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan that has been painted by Vincent Van Gogh; included by Martin Luther King, Jr. within his “I’ve been to the mountain top” speech in Washington, D.C.; encoded into contemporary law to protect people who stop to help; and beloved by many. We know it by heart. Recently Pope Francis had a day trip to the Island of Lampedusa off the coast of Sicily. Here thousands of persons have died fleeing poverty and violence in North Africa. The Pope offered Mass on a boat-shaped-altar made from wood of the small boats and rafts that have been wrecked off the coast carrying refugees and immigrants to their deaths. He thanked and encouraged local island folk for providing assistance. He expressed sympathy to Muslim and Christian families for the loss of loved ones. He spoke with regret of the global indifference to the plight and suffering of immigrants. It is a modern story of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Can we continue like the priest and the Levite to walk by? At some risk can we become more involved like the Good Samaritan? Of the three walking down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, he “became neighbor” by treating the man who was robbed and left naked and near death with mercy. As Jesus says to the lawyer, he says to us: “Go and do likewise.”