Lord, help us see the wounds and find hope.

Reflection:

The Good Samaritan did what he could out of his own resources: he poured wine and oil and bandaged the man’s wounds and put him on his own animal.  He went further still by promising to pay for his care.  When we see the world through the Samaritan’s eyes, every situation can be an opportunity to help those in need.  This is where love manifests itself.  The example of the Good Samaritan motivates us to ask ourselves how to respond to our neighbor.  He gave wine and oil, restoring the man and giving him hope.  What can we give, so that we can be a part of God’s work of healing a broken world?

This brokenness shows itself in our world in insecurity, fear, distrust, and division.  Shamefully, these divisions also exist between Christians.  Though we celebrate sacraments or other rituals of healing, reconciliation, and consolation, often using oil and wine, we persist in divisions that wound the Body of Christ.  The healing of our Christian divisions promotes the healing of the nations.

Prayer:
Gracious God,
You who are the source of all love and goodness:
enable us to see the needs of our neighbor.
Show us what we can do to bring about healing.
Change us, so that we can love all our brothers and sisters.
Help us to overcome the obstacles of division,
that we might build a world of peace for the common good.
Thank You for renewing Your Creation
and leading us to a future which is full of hope:
You who are Lord of all, yesterday, today, and forever.
Amen.

May we never turn away from those in need.

Reflection:

The priest and Levite who walk by on the other side may have had good religious reasons for not helping; they may have been ready to perform certain religious rituals and might have risked ritual defilement if the man had been dead.  Yet on many occasions, Jesus is critical of religious leadership for placing the rules of religion ahead of the obligation to always do good.

The beginning of the text for the Week of Prayer tells us how the teacher of the law wanted to justify himself.  The priest and the Levite in the parable would have felt justified in what they had done.  As Christians, how far are we prepared to go beyond convention?  Sometimes our ecclesial and culturally conditioned short-sightedness can prevent us from seeing what is being revealed by the life and witness of sisters and brothers of other Christian traditions.  When we open our eyes to see how God’s love is revealed by our fellow Christians, we are drawn closer to them and so are drawn into deeper union with them.

This parable of Jesus not only challenges us to do good, but also to widen our vision.  We do not only learn what is good and holy from those who share our confessional or religious world view, but often from those different from ourselves.  The Good Samaritan is often the one we do not expect.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ,
As we journey with you towards unity,
may our eyes not look away,
but be wide open to the world.
As we travel through life,
may we stop and reach out, bind up the wounded
and in so doing, experience your presence in them:
you who live and reign for ever and ever.
Amen.

Lord, open our hearts to those we do not see.

Reflection:

The teacher of the law wanted to justify himself, hoping that the neighbor he is called to love is one of his own faith and people.  This is a natural human instinct.  When we invite people to our homes, they are quite often people who share our social status, our outlook on life, and our values.  There is a human instinct to prefer places of familiarity.  This is also true of our ecclesial communities.  But Jesus takes the lawyer, and his wider audience, deeper into their own tradition by reminding them of the obligation to welcome and to love all, regardless of religion, culture, or social status.

The Gospel teaches that loving those who are like ourselves is not extraordinary.  Jesus steers us towards a radical vision of what it means to be human.  The parable illustrates in a very visible way what Christ expects from us – to open wide our hearts and walk in his way, loving others as he loves us.  In fact, Jesus answers the lawyer with another question: it is not “who is my neighbor,” but, “who proved to be a neighbor to the man in need?”

Our times of insecurity and fear confront us with a reality where distrust and uncertainty come to the forefront of relationships.  This is the challenge of the parable today: to whom am I a neighbor?

Prayer:
God of love,
Who wrote love in our hearts,
instill in us the courage to look beyond ourselves
and see the neighbor in those different from ourselves,
that we may truly follow Jesus Christ,
our brother and our friend,
who is Lord, for ever and ever.
Amen.