Are we in a hurry?

Sometime in 1986, within a month after the EDSA revolution, a tall, lanky French Canadian layman came to Manila to give a retreat to a group of bishops and priests, religious and lay people. The lay retreat master was Jean Vanier, founder of over 60 homes for mentally disabled in over 20 countries. Jean Vanier told us many stories. Recalling, a visit to a Canadian hospital, he encountered; “In the first rooms, I met people who were preparing to return to ‘normal’ society. They looked at me and I said ‘Good morning’ and they smiled slightly. Then I went to see the ‘very defective’, the chronic cases, who were further away. They came and took my hand and said, ‘My name is Robert, what is your name?’ Finally beyond the hospital fence, I went into the ‘normal’ world, (our world, that is) where people don’t talk to  me and don’t smile at me… where they run and don’t stop for the sufferings of their brothers, for they are in a hurry.”

To  help us in our reflection, let’s go to another master story teller, Jesus Christ. You are all familiar with this parable. Let me share another’s reflection. The first part of the gospel story underlines the two fold commandment of love of God and love of neighbor as the way to really live. Then to those who would want clear limits so as to know how far they had to go in observing this commandment, Jesus responds with the story of the Good Samaritan, the shocking good news here is that there are no limits to love. But the test of love’s authenticity is not outside ourselves but in our hearts. Are we capable of being moved to compassion at the sight of another’s — any other’s — wounds?

Before we answer this question by reciting to ourselves a litany of what we do and stand for, let us take another look at the Gospel story. To borrow the categories of Paul Ricoeur, there are three critical moments in the parable of the Good Samaritan: Encounter, Conversion, Action.

Encounter. The priest, the Levite, the Samaritan all happened to be traveling down the road and all saw the man. This moment encompasses all our encounters on the way: encounters with people, death, new life, tragic situations and joyful events. They are encounters which surprise us, annoy us, interrupt our getting where we are going, disturb our plans and often take up time we feel we don’t have. They break through our tightly scheduled lives and offer us the opportunity to discover the other, ourselves, the world; to discover the mystery of life, its meaning and depth. The ones we expect would stop to help — the priest and the Levite — passed by on the other side. The one from whom we expect nothing good — the Samaritan — takes time.

Conversion. The priest and the Levite passed by on the other side. Their choice at this critical moment was not to change their plans, not to interrupt their journey. But the Samaritan was moved to compassion when he saw the wounded man. He was willing to change his life’s direction at this moment, to be more concerned about the man he met on the way than about arriving at his destination at the planned time. It is a different way of living in relation to time, in relation to life. He showed that he cared.

This is shocking good news: Help comes from a totally unexpected source and in unexpected abundance — from those we call ‘sinner’, bad’. Help comes from the despised half-breed — from the one we had labeled godforsaken, the one we were so sure was incapable of any good.

At this point, it is the hearers of this parable — the lawyer and ourselves — who are challenged. Our own security is shaken at its deepest roots where we know who is good and who is bad, who will stop to help and who will pass by. And we protest loudly with all kinds of evidence to support our judgments: ‘I’ve known her for years, she’s always been like that,” or “I just know his kind.” “Ganyan talaga siya.” Only if we can allow our neat categories to crumble will the Kingdom of God break through and offer us new possibilities, new vision, a heart of flesh that can be touched and transformed by the other.

Action. If this moment does not take place, then conversion hasn’t happened. We have not allowed our new vision to take root in our hearts where it transforms our way of acting, our way of relating. The Samaritan bandaged the wounded, lifted him, carried him, looked after him, and he would be back that way… He truly cared.

As listeners, if we have responded to the moment of conversion, we will be willing to be “surprised” by others, to be open to discovering anew each person we meet. We will be willing to live “unprepared and unsafe” as we shed the labels we use, the boxes we put people in. We will see people that were “never there before”, convinced that there is no such a thing as an insignificant person, but only the significance our blindness will not allow us to see.

Encounter. Conversion. Action. How do we assess ourselves? Our record of service should give us no excuse for feeling smug and unreflective. For it is so much easier to give a hand-out than to hold a hand out to another. It is the quality of our presence that brings another person either life or death. So the last question of Jesus is really addressed to us: Which of these three proved himself neighbor? And our answer is or should be: the one who had compassion on him, the one who cared. Or, are we too much in a hurry?

15th Sunday in O.T. Lk 10:25-37