By Father Joseph Chan Wing-chiu
The gospel parable of the Good Samaritan is, I am sure, familiar to all of us. The man who was robbed and beaten did not only meet the Samaritan, but also a priest and a Levite. The first two did not help him, but the Samaritan did. The expert in the law who asked Jesus about this question thought, from his point of view, that the Samaritans and the Jews did not get along, and that there was even a bad relationship between them, because he considered Samaritans as Gentiles, and that the Jews did not want to get along with the Gentiles.
However, what happened was that this man, who came down from Jerusalem was beaten and injured, and no one rescued him, not even his own countrymen, not even some of the leaders of his own faith; they abandoned him. It was only this Samaritan, who was regarded as a Gentile and who was not supposed to have any dealings with a Jew, came to his rescue. Of course, we can imagine that this man, who had been beaten half to death, did not even know who this man was, but it was good that someone saved him!
Brothers and sisters, in the teaching of the gospel, we are not taught to distinguish whether we are to be a Samaritan or whether we are to uphold the thinking of the priest or Levite, but what is important is the question asked by the expert in the law: “Who is my neighbour?”
Jesus does not answer the question. If we think about it carefully, Jesus is actually teaching us to ask another question: How do I become someone’s neighbour? In the Bible passage, Jesus’ answer is very clever. He asks who the neighbour of the wounded man should be. It is of course the one who took the initiative to help him.
Brothers and sisters, as Christians, with the teaching of Jesus, we are often reminded to treat one another with love. Therefore, as Christians, we need to be positive and proactive, not to ask who is my neighbour, but to tell ourselves: I am the neighbour of others! Whenever we take the initiative to care for and help the needy, when we sincerely pray for the needy and those in distress, we become someone’s neighbours. In fact, we do not need to wait, we do not need to look for them, because we are them.
Each one of us has been baptised in the name of Jesus Christ and share in his resurrection life. Each one of us is in fact Jesus Christ. And it is with this spirit in mind that Jesus became our neighbour. He chose to leave heaven and come down to earth to be one of us, to become close to us.
Let’s be a neighbour to the people we meet in our lives, care a little more, and give some of our time and sacrifices to help those in need. At that time, those who do not know the Saviour will find that he is close to them, right in front of their eyes.
