Go and Do Likewise (15th Sunday Ordinary C)

The Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam published his article, “American Grace,” revealing his discovery that the loss of community in America is counterbalanced by a social capital that is kept alive in one place more than any other—in the house of worship. His study reveals that church-goers are more likely to engage in charitable works than their secular counterpart. Those who go to church are more likely willing to do voluntary work, give donation to homeless people, donate blood, help a neighbor in need, help someone find a job, etc.

(Picture from twitter # Sendong)

This is an affirmation of the message of today’s gospel (Lk 10: 25-37) which places love at the heart of Christian ethics. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is a timeless story of everyone’s primary responsibility in love to take care of those who are in need, the neighbor.  Putnam’s study somehow reveals how the message of the parable continues to be incarnated in today’s Christian commitment to loving service in our communities.

Let us reflect more deeply on this primary responsibility to love as taught by today’s gospel reading.  Two things for our reflection: First, the primacy of love over any other law; second, the active nature of love.

Primacy of Love. The gospel reading presents a dialogue between Jesus and the scholar of the law. The conversation leads to an agreement that, according to the law, what brings eternal life is following the greatest commandments, that is, love of God and love of neighbor.  This is illustrated, then, by the parable of the Good Samaritan which effectively employs irony to bring the message across quite powerfully.

The priest and the Levite, who enjoy respectable religious status and are expected to be more loving than others, are portrayed to have fallen short of the duty to love. They have placed more importance on the laws governing ritual purity so that they avoided helping and having to touch the blood of a dying man.  They seemed to have been more concerned about their ritual functions in the temple than their duty to show mercy and love to someone in dire need.

On the other hand, the Samaritan, who is a social outcast due to religious, cultural and political reasons, is described as being readily concerned and compassionate to the robber’s victim.  The Samaritan’s act of love becomes a criticism of the misplaced priority of the ritualistic priest and Levite. Love is the greatest of all commandments.

Our religious piety is not bad as it is an integral part of our faith expression.  But it should not become our comfort zone where we feel secure as we hide from and avoid the demands of loving. Instead, an authentic piety must lead us to greater sensitivity to the neighbor’s needs and even bring joy to our commitment to the works of charity.

Love in Action.  It is one thing to know and understand what love is and its significance in our faith; it’s quite another to actually do it. Love is not so much an idea as a commitment to act.  When the scholar of the law correctly presented the two greatest commandments of love as the way to eternal life, Jesus agreed: “You have answered correctly.”  He did not stop with this simple affirmation though.  Jesus emphasized the necessity of acting according to the greatest commandments as he continued to say: “Do this and you will live” (v. 28).

The scholar of the law wished to justify himself and continued to ask Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” It is to this question that Jesus narrated the parable of the Good Samaritan where both the priest and the Levite refused to extend their helping hand to the dying man while the Samaritan compassionately assisted him. It is important to note that Jesus, then, changed the question.  It is no longer about “who is my neighbor.” Jesus asked the scholar of his opinion that among the three “who acted as a neighbor.”

The scholar got the correct answer again of course: “The one who treated him with mercy.” And Jesus finally gave him this instruction: “Go and do likewise.” The scholar of the law was seeking understanding and knowledge, or was just testing Jesus’ wisdom; but Jesus was directing him beyond knowledge of the law. Jesus was challenging him to act according to the greatest of all laws—the law of love.

The same challenge is thrown to all of us his disciples: Go and do likewise. We easily know who our neighbor is. Any one in need is our neighbor.  But the real question is, “am I willing to act as a neighbor?”

Robert Putnam’s discovery about the availability of church-goers for charity works is an encouraging observation.  Let us make that same observation true to all the communities we belong to. Let us make the message of the parable of the Good Samaritan alive in our communities. Let us listen to Jesus instructing us, “Go and do likewise.”

Let Love Alone Speak (5th Sunday Easter C)

I have a missionary friend who is stationed in China. There his identity as a priest is not publicly known. To reveal his identity as a Christian missionary will have serious and dangerous repercussions to his missionary work in a communist country. So he opts to be incognito. Curiously I asked him once about how he does his work of evangelization in a hostile environment when in fact he cannot openly preach the Gospel as I freely do here in the Philippines. I remember him answering, “I proclaim the Gospel by my way of living among the people there. I hope that through my witnessing, they will come to know Christ.”

Ahhh... that’s difficult, huh! It’s a lot easier to deliver eloquent homilies in our large cathedrals here! But my missionary friend is absolutely right. The gospel reading (Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35) today reminds us that essentially we announce to the world our relationship with Christ by the way we live. Or more particularly, by the way we love. Love is our mark as Christ’s disciples. In Jesus’ own words: “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (v. 35). Charity then is our identity. Exercising charity in the manner we live is therefore our most essential proclamation of who we are and of our loving relationship with Christ.

I’m reminded of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, which tackles quite extensively the theology on love and the Church’s responsibility to be a community of love. Paragraph no. 31 expresses beautifully the very point of my missionary friend and of today’s gospel: “Those who practise charity in the Church's name will never seek to impose the Church's faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love. A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8) and that God's presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is to love.”

Ah... beautiful and inspiring words! Let love alone speak! I’m honestly wondering, should I lose all these words I’m using, would I still be able to evangelize? Would love be visible in my life? When words fail, will my way of living still has the power to tell the world of God’s love?

A very important question for us to answer then is this: “How do we love?”

Oftentimes we love by giving gifts external to us like these four successful brothers who felt they needed to express their love and care for their elderly mother.  They discussed the gifts that they were able to give to her who lived far away in another city:

The first said, "I had a big house built for Mama."
The second said, "I had a hundred thousand dollar theater built in the house."
The third said, "I had my Mercedes dealer deliver her an SL600."
The fourth said, "Listen to this. You know how Mama loved reading the Bible and you know she can't read it anymore because she can't see very well. I met this priest who told me about a parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took twenty priests and 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $100,000 a year for twenty years to the church, but it was worth it. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse and the parrot will recite it."

The other brothers were impressed. After the holidays Mom sent out her thank you notes.  She wrote: 

"Milton, the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house. Thanks anyway."

"Marvin, I am too old to travel. I stay home, I have my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was good. Thanks."

"Michael, you give me an expensive theatre with Dolby sound, it could hold 50 people, but all my friends are dead, I've lost my hearing and I'm nearly blind. I'll never use it. Thank you for the gesture just the same."

"Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious. Thank you."

External gifts can be symbolic of our love but essentially love can only be effectively expressed through the gift of self. Our model in loving is Jesus himself. He instructs us to love one another AS HE HAS LOVED US. Jesus has given us not just any other gift but the gift of himself. He offered his life on the cross the day after he instructed his disciples of this commandment to love. This same self-sacrificial love will be the mark of his true disciples.

Today’s gospel then invites us to be faithful to our Christian identity and responsibility, i.e., charity. May the way we live be the way of love. In this world of secularism and materialism, may we continue to be the source of the spirit of love. May our day-to-day loving witness and self-giving proclaim to the world the love of God and attract many who are in search for meaningful lives to join the community of love which the Lord wants us to build. Let love alone speak.