Generally, the parable of the Good Samaritan is taken as an invitation to show love by serving those in need, regardless of who they are. However, the experience of a young man I met recently showed me that this parable can also be understood as an invitation to love others because we have been loved first.
This summer, I participated in a youth evangelization rally. There, a 19-year-old shared his story. Raised by a single mother after his father left shortly after his birth, he grew up carrying deep wounds. He was resentful toward his father, rebellious against his mother, and had a serious problem with authority.
Instead of Scolding
As a teenager, he began associating with the wrong crowd and eventually became involved with drugs and alcohol. One night, after smoking and drinking so much that he became seriously ill, his “friends” abandoned him. He said that somehow, his mother got to know how he was, went to pick him up and took him to the hospital, staying with him throughout the night, as he recovered. When he woke up, instead of the scolding and punishment he expected, she simply told him, “Are you alright? I was really worried about you. I am so happy you are better.”
While he expected violence and resentment, he only experienced love, care and forgiveness. His mother told him that she loved and accepted him because that was how Jesus had treated her. In other words, she could love him because she had been loved first. He said this experience changed his life and inspired him to desire the priesthood, so that he could announce and show others the love he had received. Again, this young man ‘s experience showed me the parable of the Good Samaritan made flesh before my very eyes.
Good Samaritan
Indeed, in the Gospel we see that a scholar of the law asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus points him toward the commandment to love God with all his heart, being, strength and mind, and his neighbor as himself. But the scholar asks, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan, an enemy of the Jewish people, is the only one who stops to care for the man beaten by robbers and abandoned on the road. He offers him a love that, humanly speaking, makes no sense: love offered to someone who might normally reject, insult or despise him. It is a love that resembles God’s own love for his enemies. Therefore, Jesus concludes: “Go and do likewise.”
Possibility
But how can we love our enemies? Is this really possible? Yes, it is possible for the one who is conscious of having been loved in this way first. This was the experience of both the young man and his mother. Only the one who knows that he has been totally loved can begin to offer this same love to others. And this love has been offered to all of us.
In the parable, the Good Samaritan is Jesus Christ, and the wounded man left on the side of the road is each one of us. Through our sins—our judgments, selfishness, greed, indifference, complaints, betrayals, sloth and many others that we commit—we turn away from Christ, and we act as his enemies. Yet it is precisely in our brokenness that we become like the wounded man, alone and desperately in need of help. And who comes to our aid? Jesus Christ, the Good Samaritan, who goes out of his way to care for us and restore completely. He spends all He possesses, yes even up to the last drop of His blood, so that we may have life abundantly.
Contemplate the Love of God
Thus, today’s Gospel invites us first to contemplate the love God has shown us in Jesus Christ. Only by contemplating and receiving this love can we truly accept the invitation to “go and do likewise.” Only through the grace of God’s love at work in us can we love others in the same way.
Let us ask for this grace today: the grace to love our neighbor always, even when he or she is our enemy. May the Lord grant us the gift of seeing this word fulfilled in our lives.
