Who is my neighbor?

In the time of the evangelist Luke, when the community of believers was now composed of Jews and growing number of Gentile converts, the parable of the Good Samaritan would serve as a reminder that Jesus broke the dividing wall that separated Jews and Gentiles.

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For Jews at that time, pagans/Gentiles and Samaritans were outsiders. The Gentiles worshipped idols. The Samaritans might consider themselves children of Abraham, but the Jews considered them “half-breed,” descendants of mixed marriages of Jews and pagans. Moreover, they worshiped God in their temple on Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem. But through the guidance of the Lord himself, the deacon Philip preached and converted many people in Samaria, Peter received the household of pagan centurion Cornelius to the community of believers, and Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles. The parable of the Good Samaritan reveals that the human heart which empathizes with the suffering of people answers to the great commandment of love of neighbor.

The story of the Good Samaritan continues to challenge us today. Pope Francis encourages us to view our world as one global village— we are neighbors without borders, a society open to integrate everyone, bonded by “social friendship and universal fraternity [that] necessarily call for an acknowledgement of the worth of every human person” (Fratelli Tutti, 106).

First Reading. Jon 1:1-2:1-2, 11