"Define: 'live.'"

15^th Sunday OT: Deut 30.10-14; Col 1.15-20; Luke 10.25-37
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul’s Hospital, Dallas, TX

Listen to this homily here!

Guy comes up to Jesus and asks, “How do I get to heaven?” Jesus says, “What does the Law say?” Guy repeats the Law, ending on the now infamous line, “…and love neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “Yea. That’s it. Do this and you’ll go to heaven.” But the Guy couldn’t let it go at that. He just had to ask, “And who is my neighbor?” You’ve had the same question, right? Don’t deny it! We’ve all asked, usually in a lazy effort to avoid something we don’t want to do, we’ve all asked the Define Your Terms question. Daughter asks Mom, “Mom, can I go to the mall?” Mom, always suspicious of her offspring’s motives, uses a classic Mom delaying tactic, “Is your room clean?” Daughter, exasperated with Mom’s maternal machinations demands of her mother a little more precision. She says, “Define ‘clean’.” Teacher, assigning research papers to his freshmen, notes that the papers must be no fewer than five pages long. Freshmen, probably the Daughter from the Mall, asks, “What counts as a ‘page’?” You’ve done it too! But do we ask the DYT questions for the same reasons that the scholar of the law asked his? Yes, we do. Like the scholar, we want to justify ourselves in our diluted love.

And who is my neighbor? I’ve come to admire the classical theological approach to definition, the via negativa, a technique by which a term or concept is defined by what it is not. So, who isn’t my neighbor? Mostly anyone who disagrees with me. Anyone who doesn’t “fit” in my social circle. Anyone I don’t like the look of. Those who annoy me. Anyone with more money than me, or a better car, or a bigger book budget…that’s most everyone. Anyone who lives next door to me—come on, how cliché is it to call your neighbors “your neighbors”?! Anyone who might embarrass me in public. Anyone who doesn’t look like me, talk like me, think like me; anyone who doesn’t share my love of British comedy. Basically, “my neighbors” are only those people with whom I feel perfectly comfortable, completely unthreatened by, or possibly benefit from. In other words, I do not love. Not with my heart, not my being, not my strength nor my mind. I “love” God—abstractly, in principle anyway, the way one might love a long-dead rock star—but loving my neighbor? Well, again, who’s left? Who’s left to be my neighbor? And am I even absolutely sure that I truly love myself? If I am supposed to love my neighbor as my myself, and I don’t love my neighbor…well, it’s too important to worry about!

What is the scholar of the law dodging in his DYT question? My guess: as a lawyer, this guy like definitions, limits, solid distinctions and clear ideas. The dodge? The same one we make when we ask the DYT question: Lord, you can’t be serious about this limitless love thing, this unbounded mercy thing! That’s too difficult. Not practical. Simply not doable. You can’t really mean that I have to love my neighbors exactly like I love myself. I have to pour my heart, soul, being, strength, and mind into willing (doing!) the ultimate Good for anyone who is considered “my neighbor”? Fine then. Who is my neighbor? See the dodge? Unwilling to love as you ought—freely and w/o frontiers—you rush to narrow the scope, to shallow-out the depth and shorten the reach of God’s love working through you, and then you discover that the first victim of your penny-pinching love is your salvation, your most basic friendship with Christ, with He Who Is Love for you.

Paul teaches the Colossians that Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” Therefore, Christ is “the firstborn of all creation [and] all things were created through him and for him.” Himself uncreated, Christ comes before creation, and in him the fullness of divinity, all that God Is, was pleased to dwell, and so, “ in him all things hold together…” and through him all things are reconciled for him. We were created through Christ and for Christ. We were redeemed through Christ and for Christ. We are being perfected in our creatureliness through Christ and for Christ. And we will come to thrive in the fullness of God through Christ and for Christ. But we must love! This is not a matter of mushy sentiment or weepy affection. All things are held together in Christ, and Christ is love for us. Without the passionate divine willing of the Good for us, we simply cease to exist. Blink, blink. Gone.

Quoting the Law, the scholar argues that God is telling you to love wholeheartedly, with all your being, all your strength, all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. This teaching is a plea for us to prepare ourselves to inherit lives lived in beatific eternity—love and be loved imperfectly here and now so that we will love and be loved perfectly there and then. We are not simply being warned, “Be morally good people.” We are being prepared, “You will not all die, but you will all be changed.” Follow the logic…we were created and redeemed (re-created!) through Christ and for Christ. To the degree that we love, we are being perfected through and for Christ to become Christ perfectly. And we will be brought to God through Christ and for Christ. Let’s translate just one sentence to make the point: to the degree that we are Christ, we are being perfected through love and for love to become love perfectly.

And this is what the Samaritan traveler does for the robbery victim. He loves him like a neighbor. Yes, of course, he bandages his wounds, provided for his care, and promised even more if needed, but it is not so much what he does that makes the hated Samaritan the man’s neighbor; it’s why he does it. Noting to the scholar that a priest and a Levite see the wounded man but do not stop to help him, Jesus tells the lawyer of the Samaritan’s compassion and asks him, “Who is the neighbor to the wounded man?” The scholar, who has been paying careful attention, says, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Exactly! Note: treated with mercy. Not just “treated” and not just “mercy.” The Samaritan could have treated him out of a sense of duty or fear. And he could have felt mercy, experienced compassion standing near the wounded man, done nothing, and moved on.

Here’s a another scene: Jesus tells the lawyer about a Samaritan traveler who comes upon a robbery victim, half-dead from his wounds. The traveler is moved to compassion at the sight of his injuries. He approaches the victim and asks, “Are you my neighbor?” Pondering what this might entail, the traveler rests near the wounded man and contemplates what it might mean to be neighbor to someone: How would one act toward a neighbor? Are there reasonable limits on what one can and cannot do for a neighbor? Does my love for myself translate directly into a love for neighbor, or is it somehow mitigated? While the traveler contemplates these vital questions, the wounded man bleeds to death. Jesus asks the stunned lawyer, “Did the traveler treat the man as a neighbor?” The lawyer, clearly upset, says, “No.” Jesus nods, “What should he have done instead?” The lawyer, eager now to show he has learned says, “The traveler should have loved the wounded man and cared for him.” Jesus asked, “But why?” The lawyer, near tears says, “So that he might know you, Lord.” Jesus smiles and touching the lawyer’s face says, “Go and do likewise.”