<\/a>heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength, and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u2019 Christ affirms the wisdom of his response, saying: \u2018You have answered rightly; do this, and you shall live.\u2019 But the lawyer, the Gospel tells us, wished to justify himself, and therefore said to Jesus: \u2018And who is my neighbor?\u2019 Let us reflect a moment today on why the Gospel says that he wished to justify himself with this question. And then let us think about the significance of Christ\u2019s reply in telling the parable of the Good Samaritan.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow is it that the young lawyer might justify himself by asking the Lord, who is my neighbor? Within the culture prevalent at that time, members of one tribe would only consider other members of their tribe to be their neighbors. Those outside their tribe or caste would be \u2018outsiders\u2019 indeed\u2026 not worthy of respect or even consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, for a Jew\u2026 a Samaritan would certainly not be considered their neighbor. For a Pharisee\u2026 an uneducated person would be considered beneath them and certainly would not qualify as a \u2018neighbor\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is highly likely that the young lawyer would have been kind and generous to those within his social circle, especially given his wise answer summarizing the love of God and neighbor. He may have sought justification for his good deeds among those whom he considered being his neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Christ our Lord had a new message to give to us\u2026 In His preaching and by His actions He continually broke down the assumptions and the comfort of social and religious boundaries. He deigned to speak and interact with the outcasts of Jewish society\u2026 prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response to the question: \u2018Who is my neighbor?\u2019, our Lord tells the tale of the Good Samaritan. A certain man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, robbed, beaten, and left for dead. A priest came by and, when he saw the beaten man, he passed by on the other side of the road. Likewise, when a Levite came by, he too passed by on the other side of the road. But then along came a Samaritan \u2013 one of the lowest classes of people in society \u2013 and, when he saw the beaten man, he had compassion and helped him: bandaging his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and setting him up in an inn where he could recover and be made well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The priest, who spent his time in the temple in prayer; and the Levite, who spent his time studying the Jewish Scriptures\u2026 neither of these two could be bothered to help the wounded man. It was the despised Samaritan who proved to be a neighbor, who showed mercy on the man who had fallen among thieves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christ drives home two important and groundbreaking points in this parable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many religious people of the time (and, shall we not also say of our time?) contented themselves with their religious observances of daily prayer in the temple, the study of the Scriptures, and goodwill toward those members of their caste \u2013 those perceived to be their neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christ\u2019s parable blows apart the comfort and compartmentalization that allows us to lull ourselves to sleep and inaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As represented by the priest and by the Levite – if our prayer and if our study of Scripture is not penetrating our heart and elevating our soul to compassion, then we are missing the mark. The Apostle Paul writes: \u2018Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not to love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not to love, I am nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We must love with all our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength, and with all our minds. And this compassionate love must be extended to our neighbor\u2026 Christ\u2019s revolutionary message extends the concept of \u2018neighbor\u2019 from the confines of those within one\u2019s caste to encompass all of God\u2019s creation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every person is my neighbor. Every person is created in dignity and bears the stamp of God\u2019s love within them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is inspiring and hopeful. This is also challenging and inconvenient. As Dostoevsky wrote: \u2018I could never understand how it\u2019s possible to love one\u2019s neighbors. In my opinion, it is precisely one\u2019s neighbors that one cannot possibly love.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is much easier to love an abstraction like \u2018humanity\u2019 than to love the flesh and blood person standing before you. Our neighbor may be someone in need outside our normal sphere of life\u2026 in which case we should extend ourselves to that person. Our neighbor may also be someone in need so close to us that we cannot even see their need\u2026 perhaps someone under our own roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this time of thanksgiving and gratitude, let us be fully aware of the generosity, mercy, patience, and love God shows us in our shortcomings\u2026 extending some measure of the same generosity, mercy, patience, and love to our neighbor\u2026 everyone we meet.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Luke 10:25-37) In the Gospel reading for today, our Lord is approached by a particular lawyer who attempts to test Him by asking: \u2018Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?\u2019 Our Lord Jesus Christ tosses this question to him, asking: \u2018What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?\u2019 The…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[10,12],"class_list":["post-1627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","tag-gorazd","tag-pentecost"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Gorazd-photo.jpeg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1628,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions\/1628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityrussianorthodoxchurch.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}