Weekly HOMILY for July 15, 2007: The Secret of the Good Samaritan -- Feeing, Feeling, and Doing

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C
Our Lady of Grace
July 15, 2007

The Secret of the Good Samaritan: Seeing, Feeling, and Doing
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


Hurry

Several years ago, Yale University did a study on what they called the “Good Samaritan” responses of the students.

The students were divided into three groups. Each group was told to report to another building across the campus to take a test.

The first group was told to get there immediately and they were called the “high hurry” group. The second group was told to get there in fifteen minutes and they were called the “middle hurry” group.

And the third group was told to get there sometime that morning and they were called the “no hurry” group. Without knowing it, the students had been set up.

Along the way, various individuals posed as persons in need. One was crying, one pretended to be sick, and a third had a flat tire.

Interestingly, none of the students in the “high hurry” or “middle hurry’ groups stopped to help anyone. But every student in the “no hurry” group did stop.

Yale University concluded that as the hurry in our lives increases, our caring decreases. Does that ring true in your own experience?


The Questions: Jesus and the Lawyer

The Yale Study can help us break open God’s Word.

The Gospel story says that a student of the Law, probably a lawyer, asks Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He seems to be taking a legalistic approach to religion.

He is really asking: “What do I have to do and what don’t I have to do?” It is something like us asking if the Wedding Mass we’re at on early Saturday afternoon “counts” as our Sunday Mass.

Notice that Jesus responds to the lawyer by asking two questions. “What is written in the Law? And how do you read it?”

Certainly, the man must have known what was written in the Law and, in fact, he states it. “Love God and love your neighbor.”

But Jesus is also trying to get this man in touch with how he, within himself, understands the Law and that’s why he further asks,“How do you read it?” We know that the man offers no response to that at all.

Instead, he comes back to Jesus with another question. “Who is my neighbor?”

Once again, the fellow seems legalistic. He is really asking: “Who is and who is not my neighbor?”

And it’s at this point that Jesus tells the famous parable of the Good Samaritan.


Seeing, Feeling, Acting

Let’s look at this story a bit more carefully.

What seems to set the Good Samaritan apart from the Priest and the Levite is that he has three things going on inside himself: (1) He sees the beaten man, (2) He feels for the beaten man, and out of these two actions, (3) He acts to help the beaten man.

In contrast, the Priest and the Levite only see. They see the man lying beaten on the road. It’s only the Samaritan who moves from “seeing” to “feeling compassion” and eventually, “acting on it.”

The Yale University Study would tells us that we only need to slow down enough to be able to see, to really see, so that compassion can whelm up within us and so we can then act on it.

This ability to have compassion for another who is hurting or in need whelm up from within us is a divine quality and it’s already planted within us. It’s what makes us most like God. And when we respond like God, of course, we are closer to eternal life.

This is why Jesus tells this story in response to the lawyer’s question of “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” The Samaritan feels compassion and then acts on this feeling.

We can think of many reasons why not to act out of compassion: we’re too busy or we can’t help everyone or it’s too risky.

However, if we take the time to see, the Yale Study says we maximize the opportunity to be most God-like.


Who We Are as Persons

I close with one last insight. At the end of the parable Jesus asks, “Who was [or acted as] neighbor” to the man in need? This is a crucial question.

The ultimate moral norm, the ultimate norm of morality, is: what kind of person do I become if I do or don’t do something?

Being slow and attentive enough to see, to feel compassion and to act will shape who we are as a person.

They make us a neighbor. They make us God-like persons and that is the ultimate and absolute norm of moral living.

The first step is taking the time to see and that will make all the difference in the world!