Catherine Booth, co-founder with her husband William Booth of the Salvation Army, was an electrifying preacher. Wherever she went, crowds of people went to hear her message of hope: princes and nobles, beggars and homeless people. One night, after preaching in a certain city, a certain well-placed lady invited Mrs. Booth to dinner. The lady’s words of welcome as she arrived were: “My dear Mrs. Booth, that meeting was dreadful.” “What do you mean, dear?” asked Mrs. Booth. “Oh, when you were speaking, I was looking at those people opposite to me. Their faces were so terrible, many of them. I don’t think I shall sleep tonight!” “Why, dear, don’t you know them?” Mrs. Booth asked. “Certainly not!” the hostess replied. “Well, that is interesting,” Mrs. Booth said. “I did not bring them with me from London; they are your neighbours!”

 The Golden Rule, “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10:27) which we hear in today’s gospel is not just a Christian thing. Every conceivable religion and culture in the world has the Golden Rule in one form or another. Here is a sampling:

 Judaism “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the law: all the rest is commentary.”

 Islam: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

 Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”

 Buddhism “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

 Confucianism: “Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.”

 If the Golden Rule was so well-known in ancient cultures why then did Jesus spend so much time teaching it as if it was a new thing? It is because Jesus brought a completely new understanding to the commandment. The Golden Rule is understood differently in different religions and cultures. And the key to its understanding lies in the question that the lawyer asks Jesus in today’s gospel, “Who is my neighbour?” (verse 29). Who is my neighbour that I have an obligation to love?

 Among the Jews of Jesus’ time there were those who understood “neighbour” in a very limited sense. The Essenes of Qumran, for example, required new members to swear to love the children of light and hate the children of darkness. For them, your neighbour is the one who shares the same religious persuasion as yourself. Other groups, such as the Zealots, would understand neighbour to include only those who shared the same nationality and ethnicity with them. The average Jew would not regard the Samaritan as a neighbour. They are outsiders. The circle of neighbourly love does not include them. Jesus came into a world of “we” and “them,” “we” being the circle of those recognised as neighbours, and “them” being the rest of the world regarded as hostile strangers and enemies of the people.

 The new thing in Jesus’ teaching of neighbourly love is his insistence that all humanity is one big neighbourhood. Thus he broke down the walls of division and the borders of prejudice and suspicion that humans erected between “us” and “them.” To bring home this point he tells the story of the Good Samaritan. This man regarded as Enemy Number One by the Jewish establishment simply because he is Samaritan, is the one who finally proves himself to be neighbour to the Jewish man in need. Thus to the question “Who is my neighbour” Jesus’ answer is: Anyone and everyone without exception.

 The lady who invited Mrs Booth to dinner understood her “neighbour” to be limited only to those on her social and economic level. Mrs Booth reminded her that her “neighbour” should include the nobodies of society. Like this lady, we all need to be reminded that the Christian understanding of “neighbour” admits of no borders. Today is the day to identity and tear down all the borders we have erected between those who belong to us (and are, therefore, deserving of our love and concern) and those who don’t (those others who can go to hell). Sometimes these walls of division are religious in nature, as in the case of religious intolerance, or in the mutual distrust and hatred between those who call themselves “conservatives” and those who call themselves “liberals.” Other times they are ethnic and racial, as in the bad blood between Blacks and Whites in places like South Africa and parts of the United State. They could also be social and economic, as in the divide between suburban neighbourhoods and the inner-city. The gospel today challenges us all to dismantle these walls. This way we work with Jesus to realise his dream of the world as a neighbourhood without borders.

 In the wake of the sex scandals in the church in parts of the world, many Christians have stopped going to church. Convinced that the storms rocking the church is the work of the devil, they conclude that the devil has infiltrated the church and that it is, therefore, safer to abandon ship and go elsewhere. This reminds us of what happened in 1988,when a popular tele-evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, was implicated in a sex scandal involving a prostitute. The Assemblies of God, to which he belonged, ordered him to stop preaching for one year. But Swaggart defied the order. “The devil made me do it,” he claimed. Then he announced that Oral Roberts, another popular Evangelical preacher, had prayed for him over the phone and cast out those demons in his body that were responsible for his immoral behaviour. Three years later, Swaggart was again implicated in a sex scandal with a prostitute. Swaggart was finally defrocked and removed from the ministry by the Assemblies of God. There comes a time when we have to leave the devil alone and accept our responsibilities.

 The growing wave of Pentecostalism in our world today has reawakened the devil. Like Swaggart, many Christians in our world today see the devil where there is none. This is especially true in the young churches of Africa and the developing world, where the devil is blamed for every ill health and economic downturn. Someone has an unexpected ill heath. Their first port of call is not a hospital where the disease could be diagnosed but to a prayer ministry where the demon would be exorcised. Someone has a professional or business setback. They do not review their professional conduct or seek help from a business consultant, rather they resort to the ministrations of a “man of God.” In some prayer meetings, half of the time is spent praying to God and the other half rebuking the devil. The devil is enjoying a very high popularity rating.

 The revival of the devil’s popularity is not a new thing in the church. The church has seen it before. It was there in the early days of the church as the church was spreading from Jewish to Gentile lands. It was known as Gnosticism. Christian Gnosticism is a belief system that gave as much importance to God or Christ as to the devil. Gnostics saw life as a combat between the principle of Good, God, and the principle of evil, the devil. As Christians, they understood their duty to be joining God in a daily fight against the devil. The devil was seen as God’s rival and competitor, only that God was somewhat stronger than the devil, especially when God got a helping hand from believers. The church condemned Gnosticism as a heresy, a deviation from sound doctrine.

 Today’s second reading from Colossians cannot be clearer on this subject. It says of Christ,

 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him. (Col 1:15-16)

 It says that all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, were created in Christ, through Christ and for Christ. This includes the invisible created beings we call demons or rebellious angels. They still owe their existence, powers and activities to God. They do not pose a threat or constitute a rivalry to God.

 Christ, not the devil, but Christ, is the head of the body, the church (Col 1:18). Christ is king, and he still reigns as head in his church and in the lives of all who surrender their lives to him. As Christians, we dishonour Christ when we believe that the devil in in control of our church or our lives. Whatever is going well in the church and in our lives today is as a result of God’s grace, and whatever is going wrong in the church and in our lives today is as a result of our failure to cooperate with the grace of God. We must stop glorifying the devil, giving him an honour that is not his due.

  The First Reading highlights God´s invitation to abide that law naturally perceived by the human mind and heart. The respect and obedience of this law leads to human happiness and vocational fulfillment. In the Second Reading Paul emphasizes the centrality of Christ whose appearance in human history elevated our natural order of creation to the supernatural order of redemption. In the Gospel Christ exemplifies at the request of a scholar what the new commandment of charity requires. The practice of universal charity is a duty tied to the reward of eternal life.

  Unlike the rest of creation, God made men free. From the very beginning, God´s call to obey his law coincided with the experience of love. Since the fall when the drama of human freedom unfolds, the human will is set up in opposition to the divine will. Law becomes a yoke within the human heart. God´s law had not been effaced from the human heart as the universal experience of natural law suggests, but concupiscence and ignorance made its observance difficult. This passage is a pledge of hope for the restoration of that law and order in the human heart, which in the fullness of time would not be a law of nature but of grace.

  The law of grace presupposes the law of nature. Natural law as it passes through our reason is the natural moral law. The observance of this latter largely founds the experience of the social and political order. These laws of nature and reason, when observed, maintain the balance within the social fabric. Their observance fosters the human maturity and moral development that are necessary platforms for the development of the spiritual life. The passage in Deuteronomy was intended to remind the Hebrews that God is forever interested in their fidelity, for the observance of the Decalogue does, in fact, coincide with the contents of natural moral law, a law which is always calling us to faithful adherence.

  Paul witnesses to Christ as the central figure who fulfills perfectly both laws of nature and grace because he is their author. Jesus Christ serves as the blue print for what we too are expected to become. When God the Father made us, he thought of Christ. Jesus recuperates the observance of obediential love towards the will of God his Father. As the image of the invisible God, he makes visible his obediential love on the cross that now gains for us the participation in the law of grace. Through our exercise of faith, hope and charity, we strengthen that new law of grace within us.

  Jesus confirms the scholar in his understanding that God´s law is a law of love because its observance sustains our friendship with him. The law of love receives new qualification: it is to be applied universally to all persons independently of ulterior considerations. The example of the Good Samaritan shows that charity´s practice is not bound by historical and cultural barriers. Our practice of charity, in fact, must be universal in order to have that semblance with Christ ´the Good Samaritan´ whose own gift of redemption was meant for both Jew and Gentile.

  Through respect for this law, a person discovers the truth about himself within that law and in this way does that human life have a purpose. Human freedom is limited not nor equated with the arbitrary exercise of power. God´s law is life. His law was meant to be a source of fulfillment. Unlike all the other laws we live by, surprisingly so, we need the moral laws to safeguard civil and church laws. The Church´s precepts and laws are intended not only to protect our freedom to do what is right and good in the Lord´s sight but to also avoid falling prey to the power of the devil.
An example of this might be the Church´s command to confess ourselves sacramentally at least once a year. Another example is tithing. Through its practice we learn that it is more a spiritual activity that an economic one. Tithing shows God that we know he owns everything. We tithe not because God needs it, but because we need God and it is our way of saying, ´you´re first in my life´. But it also shows us where our treasure lies.

  The effects of frequent confession reinforce the rule of divine law within us. Among its many benefits, some deserve special mention: It reminds us of our constant need for conversion of heart. It gives us better self-knowledge and helps us grow in humility. It also weakens and uproots bad habits and makes the moral conscience more sensitive. This in turn helps souls avoid slipping into lukewarmness and laziness. Frequent confession strengthens the will and leads to a constant effort to perfect the grace of baptism in the soul. Our identification with Christ is also strengthened and it reinforces the experience of our own powerlessness in the supernatural order by helping us turn to God´s mercy and grace.

 I find it odd in the selected parts of the First Reading today that we are never told exactly what is the law that Moses is talking about. In context, this sermon of Moses is spoken before his death when he tells the people that he will not be able to enter the promised land with them, that Joshua will have to lead them, and that he has some parting advice for them. The parting advice is that they must heed God’s voice and keep the commandments in the book of the law.  The greatest law for Moses, which is recounted right after this reading, is to love God with your whole heart and soul. And Moses says that it is not hard to do.  It is something which is in the here and now, it is something which can be done in their daily lives, and it is in their hearts if they are ready to recognize it.  By loving God, they will find it easy to obey his laws. These laws, if you look at the other commandments are about treating others in a proper way – honoring our parents, not dishonoring our wives, not killing others or stealing from others or lying and being jealous of others.

  Why do we love God? The reading chosen from St. Paul today extols the greatness of God and gives us reason to love Him. It is hard to love someone we don’t see and know and understand. But God is made visible, Paul says, in Jesus and through God all things were created and all things are held together. Through Jesus’ death and rising he has become the head of the Church’s body and has reconciled all things.  These are the reasons Paul gives for loving God.  Both Paul and Moses want us to love God and do his will.

  In the Gospel reading, however, Jesus seems to put an addendum on what has been said before in Moses’ time and after, in the sense that his stress is on the second half of the law, and he does this through the use of a parable.  When confronted by a scholar of the law, who would most likely have been a Pharisee, about how he can gain eternal life, Jesus poses his question about what the law of Moses said.  The scholar, Luke said, was testing Jesus.  The scholars of Jesus’ time would have been testing or getting the better of a person because they wanted to put someone down or make them look stupid. The scholar replies as every good Jew would have responded to the question – we are to love God with all our hearts, strength, mind  and being and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The scholar then made a fool of himself because he obviously knew the answer to the question that Jesus asked. In order to recover from this, the scholar who pretended to be trying to get to a deeper understanding, but was really hoping Jesus would hang himself, then asked Jesus what was meant by a neighbor.

  In each of the cases in the Scripture where Jesus is being tested by someone, Jesus manages to get the better of  that person very subtly.  In this case, he does it through the parable he tells. The answer that the scholar is expecting, because of course, he knows the answer – is that one’s neighbors are his kin, his relatives. Families used to live in groups and on neighboring lands in Hebrew times. Jesus will extend this understanding, of course, in his parable. He will not only extend it, he will subvert it and turn it around.

  Let’s look at the parable a little more closely.  I will be helped by using some of the commentary of Fr. John Pilch, who very cleverly looks at this parable from an anthropological lens.

  First, we learned a few weeks ago that the Samaritans and the Judeans, although they believed in the same God, had been at odds for centuries. They had no use for each other and in Jesus’ time there had been violence between the two groups. That is the background. In the parable a man on a trip was robbed, a very common event apparently in Jesus time. Notice that Jesus just says “ a man”.  He does not give us any clue to the nationality or ethnicity of the man – and those passing by cannot know anything either because he has been left nude on the highway – so his clothes can’t give him away, nor can his accent, because he is unconscious.  He is just…. a man. In many ways, this makes helping him rather risky.  What if he were another robber? A crazy man? A foreigner? A Samaritan? A Judean?

  The high priest who rides by has a certain status by the very fact that he is riding a donkey and not walking.  He is coming from Jerusalem on his way to Jericho. If he touches the man, he might be breaking some of the purification laws, making himself unclean – which means he would have to go back to Jerusalem to be purified. Going back to Jerusalem unclean would seem demeaning to the priest, and so he avoids the person altogether and doesn’t have to deal with it.  It is a selfish motive and seems to represent the selfishness of the priestly caste.

  The Levite came along next. A Levite is of the tribe of Levi, the only tribe that didn’t own land because they saw God as their land – and they worked in the Temple and offered sacrifices. They were below the priest in rank, maybe more like what we would call a deacon today.  If the Levite saw the priest pass by, he would likely think himself too good and too holy to do something the priest wouldn’t do. After all, he wouldn’t want to insult the high priest by making himself look better than him.  So he, too passes by.

  The third traveller was, however, a Samaritan. Now depending on the point of view of the narrator this could be good or bad.  If a Samaritan were telling the story it would probably be good.  But Jesus, a Judean, was telling the story, and so everyone would recognize not only that this was an enemy but it was a despised person who could do no good in their eyes.

  The Samaritan is moved by the unconscious man, however, and not only administers cleansing medicine to him, but picks him up and puts him on his donkey, and takes him to a place where he can be nursed to health. And he doesn’t even leave him for that day or the next.  When he thinks he will survive, he gives money to the innkeeper, asking the innkeeper to take care of him, and if he spends more than he has been given in doing so, he will pay the tab for it when he passes by on his way back. We obviously can see that this is a beautiful thing the Samaritan does, but John Pilch points out that it is even more than that – the Samaritan literally puts his life in danger because he has done this.  If the man were to die, he could get blamed for it, the robbers having been long escaped.  If he is a Judean, the man has been rendered impure by the oil and wine, and may try to kill him for that.  The purity laws of the period cannot be underestimated.  Every Jew took them very seriously. So this generous Samaritan was really taking a chance in this culture.

 Jesus then asks the scholar who was the neighbor in this instance? The scholar cannot but say that the Samaritan was most neighborly here. He was put down again, and Jesus made his consistent point that we must take care of those in need. Our neighbor extends much farther than our relatives in Jesus’ law of love.  It can extend even to our enemies.

  I don’t know how so many Christian communities have not seemed to get this message over the years.  When we think of the history of the church and all the religious bigotry against other religions, going to war against them, teaching people to shun them, when I look at the treatment of enslaved people over the years or of gay men and women, and transgendered people today, all in the name of religion, it rather boggles my mind to see that the way they are acting is the same way the priest and Levite acted and which Jesus condemned.  We have a lot to answer for. Many churches say that they love the sinner but hate the sin, but the kind of love of neighbor that Jesus points out to us in the parable of the Good Samaritan goes far beyond that simplistic equation.  We have a lot to answer for!

  This week, we all need to examine our consciences to see how we have put into action the law of love. Do we love God with all our heart, and have we loved our neighbors as much as we love ourselves? I hesitate to say that the answer is not a positive one for many of us. We have a lot to answer for!

  On the positive side, we can change. We can repent, which you remember, means ‘turn around’.  And Jesus brings forgiveness and he brings love. The first step is self-knowledge and the willingness to change that within us which has been less than loving and neighborly.

  By Bishop Kasomo Daniel

 The Bishop of The Society of St.Peter and Paul SSPP