THE JERICHO ROAD
The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle C)
Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37
One of the best known figures in the New Testament isn’t a historical person, but a character in a story told by Jesus. Jesus doesn’t give this character a name, but refers to him as a member of a particular ethnic group. The character is identified simply as "a Samaritan."
The people who heard Jesus tell this story were shocked by the identity of its hero. They viewed a good Samaritan, a compassionate Samaritan, as a contradiction in terms. The Jewish contemporaries of Jesus regarded themselves as the good guys and Samaritans as the bad guys. They detested Samaritans, and Samaritans detest them. This hatred between Samaritan and Jew was already many generations old when Jesus told his story. It is, in fact, a vast family squabble, because Jews and Samaritans are related peoples, quarreling cousins. Jesus shocks his fellow Jews when the hero of his story, this Samaritan, is a model of compassion, one who cares for an injured stranger, who cares for — get this — an injured stranger who is likely to be one of their own, a Jew beaten by robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
This parable, along with the Prodigal Son, stands as one of the most beautiful and enduring stories in the gospel. We know it so well, it’s a part of our language. “The Good Samaritan” is synonymous with charity and mercy. Countless hospitals are known by that name. Google the phrase “Good Samaritan” and you’ll get nearly four million entries. It’s so familiar to us, we may feel like we know this parable by heart along with its overriding moral: the call to compassion and kindness, and solidarity with all those who suffer. And we all know the characters involved, too: the helpless, bloodied victim by the side of the road, the Levite and the priest, and of course, the Samaritan whose generous heart earns him the title of “Good.”
But I’d like to propose another way of approaching this parable. For as much as the parable of the “Good Samaritan” is about different characters and types, it’s also about something else. It’s also about the road. It’s about traveling a dangerous and difficult route, through sometimes unfamiliar territory. It’s about the pain we encounter, and the suffering we endure. It’s about the unexpected – what happens to us, and to those we meet.
Ultimately, I think, “The Good Samaritan” is about a journey and the choices we make along the way. You see, this story is a parable not just about thoughtfulness and compassion. “The Good Samaritan” is also a parable about life, and how we live it. Here is the human adventure, the human experience, along a twisting road from Jerusalem to Jericho. We may not realize it, but it’s a road all of us travel at one time or another. We’re all on that journey. In the parable, the places of departure and arrival aren’t that important – significantly, we’re never told if the characters actually reach their final destination. What matters, instead, is the journey.
The parable takes place on the Jericho Road. The Jericho Road is the seventeen mile road that connects Jerusalem to Jericho. That road drops 3600 feet in those seventeen miles. It’s a steep, winding, descending, remote road that for centuries, and even to this day, has been a place of robberies. The Jericho Road: it’s the seventeen miles of violence and oppression. It is the strip of suffering. But the Jericho Road is also a symbol. It’s a symbol of suffering in the world.
The Jericho Road? It’s is the seventeen rooms of the corridor of the nursing home where our grandmother or grandfather, mother or father, husband or wife, brother or sister lives who has Alzheimer’s . . . The Jericho Road? It’s a seventeen floor tenement building in New York or Newark . . . The Jericho Road? It’s the seventeen mile border between warring nations, between Nicaragua and El Salvador, Namibia and Angola, or Israel and Palestine, where thousands upon thousands of people have been killed . . . The Jericho Road? It’s the seventeen miles that goes right through the heart of Calcutta . . . The Jericho Road? It’s the seventeen years that a widow or widower has lived without the love of their life . . the seventeen years a parent has mourned a child . . . the seventeen years someone has struggled with alcoholism or drug addiction . . . the seventeen years someone has battled depression . . . the seventeen days or months since a cancer diagnosis . . . You see, the Jericho Road is any place where there is violence; it is any place where there is oppression; it is any place where there is misery. It is any place where people are robbed of their dignity and robbed of their love and robbed on their food and robbed of their freedom. It is any place where people are robbed of their health, robbed of their peace, robbed of their happiness. The Jericho Road is always with us. The Jericho Road.
And what matters on the journey – our journey — down that road is those we encounter along the way. How do we treat them? Do we notice them? Do we avoid them? Do we act like they don’t exist? Or: do we see them, with all their wounds and scars, and see a neighbor in need? Do we, perhaps, even see ourselves? Because we all have wounds. And we all need shelter. That place might be an inn. It might be a church. It might be the sheltering arms of friendship, or family. Or it might not be a place at all. Sometimes the sturdiest walls are made of mercy, and the strongest roof is constructed of love. That’s the most beautiful shelter of all.
Those stopping places, those shelters, are also part of the journey. And so are the choices we make along the way. A choice to stand on the sidelines — or to get involved. A choice to stay in our comfort zones – or take a risk. A choice to keep on going – or to stop, bend down, and bandage the wounds of another.
At the end of today’s gospel, after the scribe reluctantly, but correctly, identifies the one who treated the robber’s victim with compassion as being neighbor in the parable, Jesus challenges him and us: Go and do likewise. He's telling us to go and be merciful. Go and care. Go and burden yourself with the problems of anyone who is a neighbor: a stranger, a parishioner, a friend, a family member. But go. Follow the unpredictable road that is life. Risk encountering what you don’t want to see. Leave your comfort zone. Dare to engage yourself in the struggles of another. Dare to love . . . to love as he loves. And how does God love? God loves without condition. God loves indiscriminately, wildly, with abandon, abundantly, without consideration of merit. For God, everyone is neighbor – every race, every color, every persuasion, Samaritans and Jews, Democrats and Republicans, heterosexual and homosexual, blue collar, white collar, no collar; God’s love cannot be limited by careful, legal definitions.
That’s a lot! How can we possibly love in this way? The truth is, we can’t. At least we can’t by our own power. We need the help of Christ. If we want to love this way, we must seek him every day of our lives. We must ask for his help in the morning; he must be our pillow at night. We must read his word and reflect on his life. We must take him in through his body and blood. We must associate with him in those who are hurting, those who are in need. If we do this, he will enable us to love fully. That’s it . . . End of story . . . There is no other way.
The last words of the parable, Go and do likewise, are Christ’s instructions to a world that is often too timid, too indifferent, too cautious, or too frightened. Get over all that, Jesus says. Begin the journey. Leave your own Jerusalem, and journey to Jericho, with a heart that can be moved to compassion. The Samaritan did that, and saved a life – and very likely saved his own soul. Go, Jesus says. Go and do likewise. The test of the Christian’s love of neighbor isn’t found in grand pilgrimages or reading Catholic classics. It’s found in what we do with the person at the side of the road, the need that crosses our path. That need may be for money, for our time, our compassion, our advice, for our help to get back on the road. The principles of holiness and of eternal life are universal and ageless. The way to holiness, the road to eternal life is local. It runs right through the place where we live.
