Good neighbour is a Samaritan

Strange enough, that the Good neighbour is a Samaritan, not just leper, tax-collector. Samaritan is consciously distanced stranger. Samaritan himself is reflected in the wounded traveller who is treated as a distanced stranger. His coming near  shows that he is not afraid, he spends his oil and wine, looks after him. The unknown in the stranger is not necessarily to be suspected of being harmful to us. Remember that  it was strangers that offered blessing to Abraham, and it was at a stranger's voice the hearts of the disciples were filled with new strength of life.

The priest and the Levite conveniently bypassed the needy. their status could defend their passing by because they had to keep themselves pure. The Lawyer also is trying to bypass Jesus, yet he is justifying his passing by by asking a 'noble' question. 

Now the question comes to us: whose neighbour  I am, and  to whom I am  a neighbour. Perhaps, at times we need to be a generous provider, but we may also have to be a humble receiving neighbour too. Jesus received the care of neighbour from Simon of Cyrene on the way to Calvary, and from the thief at his right side on the cross. he responded in gentle words, and to the thief at his left in silence.

provider. Provider with ulterior motive and pride cannot be a neighbour.

It is all in neighbourhood we are nourished, strengthened, hurt, broken, cared, healed, and raised up. What we have received will form in us the shape of our neighbouring to others. True Word of life we receive in neighbourhood, and we live by it. Thus neighbourhood is the new covenant, a new way of being with others. It is also a work of grace/ spirit. Every neighbourhood bond opens a grace channel for us. Some do break such channels and we are deprived of grace leaving us in pain. But abundance of other neighbourhood bonds can heal and strengthen and place us into the web of life, and there is peace.

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Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

I can't Believe unless ...

Though some pious movements within the church wants to emphasise that the Christians must remain an isolated community (consecrated/separate group, we are well aware that we are exposed to complex matrix of multiple cultures and peoples. We can find ourselves within a web of disciplines of moral formation within our traditions and institutions. Even religiosity and spiritual practices are framed within categories of moral obligations. Yet when it comes to what we truly are to be, to bring good tidings to the poor, to proclaim deliverance to the captives and restore of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the favour of the Lord, we easily escape from such commitments hiding in cultic pious customs. Our religiosity is nurturing that kind of view. "I' go to church, 'my' family goes for retreat... may not form a witnessing christian community.

As a religious system it seems to focus on moral actions whereas they have their roots in culture, values, perspectives, social norms etc. The instructions such as not to touch, see, feel are insufficient to enable us to form a living culture in the midst of a fast changing world. The kind of non-sensual orientation remain external to our life conditions, and offer no hope for living. What they live is not a pious life, but a customary living of religious culture. So we can see those trying for their non-worldly religiosity either live with religious content (spiritual insanity) or nurture despair and gradually atheism. It is observed that the Church’s inability to see the changing world and its concerns was the main reason for modern atheism.

Formation of a living culture is not worked out by guiding norms or theories. It is lived and communicated within communities (it is of course not a mechanical group living). It is rather difficult and challenging because we cannot have definite plans and expected results within a time. Even morality is a community responsibility. One cannot condemn another, but must own the responsibility for what has been found condemnable. As isolated individuals no one can learn to live a life style of Christ. A Christian community needs to become a home where these can come with their inability to believe and trust. There one can feel the community’s wounds and pains due to ‘my’ absence. Entering into the community one enters into the experience of making a more complete body of Christ.