HOMILY FOR FIFTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (C)

Fr Billy Swan

AND WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?

Dear friends. Today’s Gospel contains one of the best known of Jesus’ parables - the Good Samaritan. The context of Jesus telling it is important for it was given in response to the question of the lawyer and is the question addressed to us all today: ‘And who is my neighbour?’ By telling the parable, Jesus challenges us to expand our understanding of our neighbour, who we are responsible for and to go beyond the minimum requirement of what is expected of us. Doing so is what love and mercy demand. The priest and the Levite in the story were good people who obeyed the law. But being obedient to the law still left a wounded man lying by the side of the road.

This timing of this parable is providential for the times in which we live. Being challenged to expand our hearts and to see everyone as our neighbour is what is needed to counter growing attitudes of racism, fear and what the late Pope Francis called ‘the globalisation of indifference’ where millions of people in distress are ignored and dumped at the side of the road with most of the word choosing to look the other way.

Here I will mention examples that transcend any right or left divide. While the Church must not be political, so too must we show leadership by being the voice of those whose voices are not being heard and in the case of some, whose screams fall on deaf ears. While urging the Church away from politics, the late Pope Francis warned that Church doctrine and teachings must not become ‘locked up in an encyclopaedia of abstractions’ and preferring ‘a God without Christ, a Christ without the Church, a Church without her people’ (Rejoice and Be Glad, 37). This was the stuff that the priest and the Levite used to justify themselves, walking past the injured man.

Take for example the appalling situation of genocide in Gaza where innocent people are suffering and dying. When political, Church, community leaders and people of goodwill raise our voices about this issue and cry ‘stop!’, we play the part of the Good Samaritan and disrupt the globalisation of indifference that has allowed this genocide to continue. We break the silence and recognise their dignity that has been ignored for so long.

Or the incessant attacks on the dignity of human life. Last Saturday (5^th July) at the ‘Rally for Life’ march in Dublin, it was highlighted that over 50,000 of our unborn have died since the repeal of the 8^th Amendment. These children are are no more. Failure to offer supports to women and to families is leading to spiralling abortion rates while the government turns a blind eye and instead simply focuses endlessly on abortion access. These policies - and this wilful indifference - is literally aborting Ireland's future. We need to understand what's driving women towards abortion and how we are failing both mother and child by making abortion the only option. And when we do, we contribute the globalisation of indifference.

The same is true of euthanasia. The medical professionals have rejected it and yet it is being pushed politically and ideologically (as it is in the UK). If the only thing we can offer our elderly and terminally ill is the possibility to end it all, then we walk the other way. Instead, we are called to identify in weakness, God’s call to appreciate that human life is the primary common good of society. Life is a sacred gift and every human person, created by God, has a vocation to a unique relationship with the One who gives life.

Or take racism. Last week in the north of the country, an effigy of a boat with migrants was put at the top of a bonfire before being set alight on 12^th July. This act goes beyond indifference and in the direction of a culture of hate and fear. The Christian Churches everywhere must counter this push to define ‘who is not my neighbour’ and that leads to racism, violence and fear.

Other examples include the hungry, the homeless and all those represented by the injured man in the Gospel. These are the people who cry out for Good Samaritans who recognise them, stop to find our what has happened them, care for them, help them and assist them to find spaces for healing and hope.

This is the hope that we proclaim again in this Jubilee Year – the hope that is born anew when the Church raises up an army of Good Samaritans to counteract the globalisation of indifference, the attacks on human life and a hatred that breaks lives apart. Let us enlist in this army now to help create a better world.