Do we live recognizing that everyone is our neighbor?

Growing up, we biked around our neighborhood with other kids in the neighborhood. Rode through the dirt hills and had lots of fun. We were invited over our neighbor’s place occasionally and exchanged holiday gifts.

Later in life, I lived with college roommates in a house filled with musicians and learned to be cautious of noise and late night movies. Learning to be considerate is an important lesson in my young adult experience. These are two examples of my experience of having neighbors.

Who is your neighbor? Jesus tells us to care for our neighbor. In antiquity, the idea of neighbor was your countrymen or those in your close-knit community. Jesus stretches our limited understanding.

In today’s parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus teaches us that our neighbor can be anyone! Jesus is presenting the global family, the universality that everyone is our brother, our sister, the one we are called to serve. No one is estranged from our charity. Pope Benedict XVI emphasizes this point, “Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbour.”

All our life’s work is judged on our ability to love the other, irrespective of who they are. When we saw someone hungry, did we feed them? When someone was thirsty, did we give them drink? Saint John Paul II said, “Reaching out to the suffering and less fortunate is at the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” The parable of Matthew 25 is the reality check we all need. We will be measured by love alone.

Care for the vulnerable. This is God’s command. If we revisit the First Reading, we realize how close God’s law is to us:

“For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say,
‘Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say,
‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’
No, it is something very near to you,
already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out” (Deuteronomy 30:10-14)

A Benedictine Thought

In many monasteries you will find the word PAX written on the walls. It is latin for peace. Peace in this worldview is not the absence of war. Interestingly, it is service. The monastics are not called to be pious disciples always at prayer. Rather, their prayer infuses their service in the most hidden ways. Prayer moves them to work whether that is in the garden, library, teaching in the seminary, or work that benefits the whole community.

Joan Chittister, OSB offers insight into PAX. She says,

Benedictines were key to promoting peace as a spiritual value as well as a social need. Most of all, this ideal not only contributed to the stabilization of the eleventh century but laid the basis for a new kind of public contact. It seeded a newly emerging awareness that the community itself needed to give aid to the poor and protect the defenseless if human life was going to be humane for everyone (164-165).

Who is the model of the Good Samaritan? Who is the model of true and authentic peace? Jesus. He calls us to serve others because he has first served us. He takes us to the inn, the Church, and entrusts her ministers to restore us to full spiritual health. He restores us so we can imitate him and be his presence for others. Savor his life changing word, may his word be food for our journey.

Can we respond to the Lord’s invitation and be the Good Samaritan for others? Kindness and charity are not just philanthropic work. It is living testimony of evangelical love. Let us be on our way.