“On a journey to Jericho, a man fell victim to robbers. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. He took him to an inn and cared for him.” “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
The men who did not stop to act as neighbor to the injured man, acted for religious reasons. If the man was dead, the religious system the priest and Levite support, would judge them to be ritually impure for touching him. In Jesus’ story, the person who does act as a neighbor, the Samaritan, challenges us, especially in these days of official robbers, to also act as a neighbor. Too many robbers are beating our neighbors, stealing their lives and our communities. We are being called to compassion, healing, and care. The Samaritan in the parable is more than an unlikely hero. He is judged an enemy by the religious men who do not act as neighbor. To tell the parable today, we could make the Good Samaritan the Good ICE Agent. The surprise of the parable is not that the identity of the person who acts as neighbor is a Samaritan. The surprise of the parable is in our identity if we judge another human being or group of human beings as an enemy. It is true that ICE agents’ behaviors match those of the robbers of the parable who make other people victims. That truth does not make them enemies, deserving of equally dehumanizing treatment. ICE Agents, specifically those who call themselves Christian, dehumanize, devalue, and destroy others, religiously so. They support a religious system that judges between the pure and the impure, the Chosen and the UnChosen. What is the journey they took to be the robbers who injure others, religiously so? The ICE Agents too fell in with robbers, robber barons, robber insurrectionists, robber nationalists, robber Trumps and Millers and Homans, and Noems, … All of them are in need of many Good Samaritans. Shall I be a Good Samaritan to an ICE Agent, moved with compassion when I see him, healing his wounds, caring for him?
“The artificial glitter of his eyes Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise. Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep, Soothed by his steady wand’s mesmeric sweep… Of all the faces, his the only face Beautiful, tho’ painted for the stage, Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage… Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep: “What Nations sow, they must expect to reap,”… citizens, — … We grin and hurry us home and go to sleep, Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep. (This half-grown) boy drank alone, for sorrow, and then slept, And few there were that watched him, few that wept. He found the gutter, lost to love and man. Too slowly to him came the good Samaritan.” (The Wizard in the Street – Vachel Lindsay)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, strengthen us or our love of neighbors.
Question: What can prepare me in this time of cruelty to be a Good Samaritan – to all my neighbors – to be moved with compassion, heal wounds, care for others?
July 13, 2025 Gospel Luke 10:25-37 Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time