What Must I do to be Saved?
The answer to the question: "What must I do to be saved?"
Today’s Gospel is the famous story of the Good Samaritan. Let us look at the elements.
First, the story is an answer to two questions: “What must I do to be saved?” and “Who is my neighbor?”
To be saved, I must love God and neighbor but who is my neighbor? See the parable.
There is a major theme here and that is what I must do to be saved is to live the Gospel, not just the rules of the Gospel.
Raise above the minimum standard
The two people who step over the victim were actually following the law, protecting themselves from ritual impurity. Each would become impure if he touched blood and since the man was beaten within an inch of his life, he was probably covered in blood.
So, they chose to step over the man and keep on going. They literally did nothing incorrect because they fulfilled the prescriptions of the law. The problem is Jesus is always teaching that we must treat humans despite the law. The law is nothing more than the minimum standard.
Now, let us look further. What do we know about the man? Nothing.
Who cares?
Back in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s there was a story about a 21 year old Harvard student and and football player who was stabbed to death in the Boston’s Combat Zone. If you are not aware of that area, if you go to the corner of the Boston Common, at the intersection of Boylston Street and Tremont Street, that was then the beginning of a one block area called the Combat Zone, it was where X-rated movie theatres and bars with the less than clothed were zoned to exist in the city. Today, those places are no longer there and moved out to Peabody and Stoughton.
Obviously, because the student was from Harvard, the story was on the front page of the Boston Globe and covered on the news. I remember when discussions came up from the news coverage. Many would ask about this student, specifically, why was he in the Combat Zone, if he was such a hero. However, his family and neighbors and friends who were so proud of his accomplishments and future plans had an answer for those who asked. It was “Who cares?” Today, there is a great park in that neighborhood dedicated to that Harvard Student.
The message there is who cares? This is why Jesus tells us nothing about the victim of the robbers. Maybe he was a robber himself, that is why he was on the road. Maybe, he was just making the journey. The bottom line is, he is a son of God, and God wanted him to be treated and healed. The Good Samaritan, despised by the Jews, was the one who cared for him, while those more attentive to the law, stepped over him.
The same goes for us today. Jesus gives us this message. We are to love our neighbor and if you ask who is our neighbor, then just look at whom you meet outside those doors there.
Be agents of love
We are to be agents of love, a love that is greater than the legal requirements of love.
Our love of others must be radical and unconventional. We do that as servants of God.
Now we can only help others as our resources allow. Today, we have issues that they did not have in the time of Jesus in terms of liability. However, no one is outside God’s call to love. No one.
If the opportunity arises and we have the resources to act in ways of love, then we can do it. Dorothy Day took this seriously and taught others to do the same, mostly working with the homeless. Peter Maurin who worked with her on the streets of New York was deeply steeped in giving what he could to help others, even the shoes on his feet.
This is a radical way of loving.
Remember, the parable is an answer to the question: What must we do to be saved? The answer includes love your neighbor. How do we love our neighbor? Seek to live at a higher standard than the law requires.
Fr. Robert J Carr is the former pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA
He is currently, the chaplain for two hospitals in Brockton, Massachusetts
His Patreon Page is patreon.com/catholicaudiomedia
He is the author of several books including: Christ in Your Humanity