Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Link to Mass Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/071110.shtml

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

There is no mystery about salvation. The theme of today’s readings is that we already know what we must do. In the first reading Moses teases the Israelites, because the directions to salvation are not in the sky or across the sea, they are not out of reach or unknowable. The opposite, because all they must do is heed the voice of the Lord and keep his commandments written in this book of the law, a book they can read and understand.

Paul makes it even more obvious, because not only have we been told exactly what we must do, but Christ Jesus came as a human and showed it to us. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, because he was a human who lived without sin.

In the gospel we ask with the scholar, “who is our neighbor?” Even though we know what we must do, we are afraid because to give all of ourselves seems too much. We want Jesus to tell us that no, we must only do this much and no more for eternal life. But everyone is our neighbor. There are no limits on our mercy or love. And that is terrifying.

We all want to believe that we are like the Good Samaritan in the Gospel. We want to believe that we are that good. But we aren’t. We are more like the victim, who has been robbed and beaten and is in need of mercy. The psalmist says “Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.” God has come to save us, and we must accept his tenderness.

The fact that Jesus as human was without sin, and conquered all his human failings is scary, because that means our failings are conquerable. Sin is so comfortable sometimes, because we know we are bad, we know in what ways we fail, and we know who we are. But “See, you lowly ones, and be glad;/ you who seek God, may your hearts revive!/ for the Lord hears the poor,/ and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.” God has come to save us, and with his spirit in us no sin is too great, and no act of love too much.

As Christians, we must accept the mercy God has shown us, and go to do likewise to all our neighbors, every man and woman we meet. We must love our God with all our selves, and follow his commands in little things so that we might follow him in large things. Through God all things are possible. With him there is freedom. Let us be healed, take up our mat and follow him who has saved us, to go and do likewise for others.