ON July 11, as I heard the priest read the gospel from Luke 10:25-37 telling the story of the Good Samaritan, it struck me that the inn was really a place of refuge for the Israelite.
A place of healing, cleansing, forgiveness, compassion and love. A place of restoration (the Church).
In the gospel we have the priest and a Levite, both very good men who observed faithfully the laws of the Temple and the outward cleansing that they religiously adhered to. Their perception of God is that God’s Spirit lives outside of a human being. Thus their failure to cleanse the inner vessel.
Then we have the Israelite, a man beaten and broken by life, a sinner, dirty, filthy, an untouchable who has the disease of ‘divorce’, a ‘scourge’ who breaks hearts, who would defile the righteous should they come in contact with him and then we have the good Samaritan, a humble little man who comes along minding his own business and happy, whose perception of God is one that God’s Spirit lives in all human beings.
Lo and behold he comes across this wanton sinner and what does he do, he binds up his wounds and takes him to a place of refuge (the inn), where the love, mercy, forgiveness and compassion of God bring healing, a place where he can become whole again.
He pays the cost of this guy’s salvation to God (the innkeeper) by his death on the cross (and even says should it cost more then I will pay that too). What a Samaritan Christ was!
I see the Samaritan as a Christ figure who accepted the cost of bringing change to another human being. He did not change the rules of the Temple, he just showed love and compassion to this unfortunate human being.
We need the ideals that we have to struggle towards, but our life’s struggles and pains to stay faithful to those ideals, should that not fill us with the incredible love, mercy, forgiveness and compassion of Christ?
If we have failed to be a refuge to those who through whatever circumstances have formed their lives and decisions and brought about divorce in their lives, then I ask you, Where is Christ in this? Where is his forgiveness through the cross he bore for our sins? Where is his compassion? Where is his mercy?
Moses had incredible love and compassion and took pity on the Israelites when some of them could not live the ideal and Moses is seen as a Christ figure. Maybe we can learn from Moses’s wisdom.
May God have mercy on us all (sinners).
FRANCES RICE-JORDAN
Birkdale, Qld
