All of us have heard plenty of great homilies preached on the story of the Good Samaritan. Some, I suspect, centered on the lawyer whose clever question, “And who is my neighbor,” showed how much he had to learn about the eternal life he claimed to want. Others probably took up the active compassion of the Samaritan himself or even the pedagogical ability of Jesus in telling this story as a way of enfleshing the greatest commandment. But there was one small phrase in one sentence of a commentary I read that made me think about this parable from a new perspective. The sentence was this: “As Luke sees it, the parable overturns the lawyer’s stance and puts before him the challenge of emulating that of a Samaritan who was prepared to go to the aid of one who despised him” (Oxford Bible Commentary). One who despised him. What about that guy, lying by the side of the road, bloodied and beaten?

Even though the author of Luke’s gospel tells us very little about him, per se, we can put together some kind of portrait based on what the story says and what can be inferred. He was “going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” That’s a little bit of a puzzle as Jericho is northwest of Jerusalem, but scholars think that “down” here referred to altitude. In the fourteen miles between the two cities, there was a descent of 3500 feet. The road was dangerous for a couple of reasons. You can imagine that with that descent, there were a lot of narrow and rocky passes and precipices. But it was also a trade route, so if you were on it, you were either carrying money or something valuable. Robbers knew that. So maybe this man was working, just going about his daily life. Certainly he was victimized, “stripped and beaten and left for dead.” We can presume he was Jewish because the author didn’t tell us otherwise. As a Jew he may have even prayed snatches of Psalm 69 – our responsorial psalm today – as he lay there, waiting to die. “I am wearied with calling, my throat is parched; my eyes have failed with looking for my God” (verse 4). “. . . I am weak, I looked for sympathy, but there was none” (verse 21b). “I am afflicted and in pain; let your saving help, O God, protect me” (verse 30). And as a Jew, he would have hated the Samaritan. He would have seen the Samaritan, as had his ancestors for generations, as the quintessential other: as someone who was most definitely not a part of the Chosen People but was deluded enough to think that God still loved him and accepted his worship from Mount Gerizim instead of Mount Zion.

So what was it like when this stranger started dressing his wounds, touching him gently and kindly there on the side of the road? What did he think in his haze of pain and fear? What about when he started coming to in the inn, little by little realizing that he was alive due to the generosity of a person he despised? Physically he was aching as his body repaired itself, but his soul, too, must have been similarly jarred. How many conflicting feelings he may have felt. Gratitude – for his life and safety. Anger – at his attacker, his fellow Jews who, likely, he had seen across the road, at this new reality that doesn’t fit with his vision of how the world works. Humility – in being vulnerable and messy and in debt to someone who he, perhaps, would not have helped in the same situation. And whatever else he was feeling, he must have been mightily confused. It was a lot to take in, to process, to construct into a new chapter of life.

And he we are, at this point of our journey. As a community we have walked through the last week of retreat and community days together, each with our own hodgepodge of thoughts and feelings. As individuals, as well, we find ourselves at unique junctures of circumstance and choice. Alone and together – that paradox which is true for all of us. I think what this gospel might be asking us to reflect on is our openness to our quintessential other. We must be willing to be helped by those we might not expect would want – or be able - to help us. On this July 11, we recall that Benedict conveys a similar message in Chapter 3 on summoning the community for counsel and Chapter 36 on the sick and Chapter 61 on the reception of visiting monastics – and it certainly undergirds Chapter 7 on humility. New paths guarantee moments of being lost and afraid, weak and confused. Maybe we need to get ready to be saved, in those moments, by the last person we would pick to save us. That person may just be, as Paul says of Jesus, “the image of the invisible God.”

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