Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Imagine Your Neighbour!

Very Reverend Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org

(Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost)

If we listen carefully to today’s Gospel (Luke 10:25-37) we may be able to hear Jesus telling us that good religion requires imagination.

With this Gospel the Lord gives us a precious, inexhaustible treasure: the parable of the Good Samaritan. It invites us to see those whom we have become accustomed to consider enemies and opponents in a different way. It tells us that we can come to see them as neighbours whom we very much need to have in our lives.

The poor Jewish fellow who was attacked by robbers and left for dead in Jesus’ parable got help only from someone whom he had been raised to despise as a hereditary enemy: a wrong-believing Samaritan. It was this most unpromising person who, at the most critical moment in the man’s life, took the risk of getting involved and helped him get back into the ranks of healthy, living, flourishing human beings.

Those whom the unfortunate man would have considered as allies: his fellow-Israelites, fellow believers and even leaders left him for dead just as the bandits had done! Did they stop to consider what they were doing by leaving him to his fate? Did they know that they were putting themselves on the same level as the lawless ruffians who had hurt their countryman?

Perhaps they did not see that. That still does not excuse them for not using their imagination and seeing themselves as potential candidates for the same sort of treatment he got. If they had thought about it like that, they might have remembered what the Bible teaches: that "we reap what we sow" (a variation of the Golden Rule, which is taught by virtually every religion in the world!). Then they might have offered this tragic man some help.

Perhaps the Samaritan traveler was more imaginative than the men who left the victim of aggression lying bleeding by the side of the road. Or perhaps he just did what comes naturally to those who are created in the image and likeness of God. Perhaps he just did not stop to think that this was a person with whom, due to their heritage, he had irreconcilable differences. Maybe he just did what needed to be done. Nevertheless his actions showed him to be that most wonderful of human beings: A GOOD NEIGHBOUR.

Did Jesus’ listeners grasp the implications of this ingenious parable and make this lesson part of their life philosophy? Do we? Jesus has shown us that it is wrong to be mentally lazy, i. e. to think only in standard, traditional patterns of suspicion, fear and defensiveness.

We can even see ourselves as this victim who has been hurt by something she or he has experienced in this life. Then we can also see in ourselves the attitude of those people who did not want to help - the old habit of not examining the things that hurt, of just leaving them be, just letting them lie there bleeding sadness, cynicism and despair into our lives. But with Jesus’ help we can also find the Good Samaritan in us, who pauses and takes charge of the problem. Using imagination and courage we can be a good neighbour to ourselves and to others all around us. It begins within!

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