IT'S ALL ABOUT MERCY
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
July 14, 2019
Knowing the right answer is not the same as doing the right thing. One has to do with theoretical learning. The other has to do with actual human beings. And throughout the history of religion—our own as well as others—we have failed miserably to get that distinction right…at least a lot of us have.
I am blessed to be able to say that my Dad was, in truth, the smartest and wisest man that I have ever known. He was a lawyer, and a very good one. As I remarked at his funeral, it was a great burden for an eldest son like me to grow up in a home in which the father always knew the right answer for everything, and seemed genuinely perplexed—and sometimes irritated—by the fact that not everyone else knew too. But he wasn’t just the answer man, the guy with the brain full of information. He was also the most decent, morally straight, compassionately Catholic person that I ever met. He understood that knowledge of the law is meant to be in service for a greater and more precious thing—namely, the common good of all people. And for him that meant truly all people, not just my people or our people.
Near the end of his life I remember him telling me that among his proudest accomplishments in the law firm was hiring Jewish attorneys in the 1950’s—and later women—at a time when almost nobody else was doing that in Minneapolis. It was about doing the right, not only about knowing the right answers.
Lawyers don’t always have great reputations. It’s true today, it was true in Shakespeare’s day, and it was true in the gospel of Luke. And in all cases it’s for the reason: i.e., often enough it is possible to possess the right answer and to use that as an excuse for doing the wrong thing.
In today’s gospel, Luke introduces us to a lawyer—who for Luke is always a bad actor. This lawyer is motivated by malice—to trip up Jesus in a wrong answer. The lawyer already knows the answer to his own question, “Which is the greatest of the commandments? What must I do to be saved?” Jesus’ response is to do nothing more than to quote the Hebrew Sacred Scripture that any good Jew would already very well know.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, being, strength, mind…and love your neighbor as yourself.
All are agreed that is the right answer. End of story? Oh no. The lawyer pushes on, in an effort to justify himself. “And who is my neighbor,” he asks?
Instead of providing a list of eligible categorical, “neighbors,” (i.e. the “correct answer”) Jesus tells a story—a parable—and a rather shocking one at that. As it turns outs, the neighbor is the one who is most vulnerable, most beaten up, most ravaged by the cruelty of other people.
In the case of this gospel, it’s the half-dead presumably Jewish man lying naked on the road to Jericho, after having been robbed and assaulted. Any good Jewish lawyer of the day would have known—as the priest and the Levite did—that the law itself forbids contact with blood and dead flesh. As they pass by the helpless man they are perfect keepers of the law, and they do the wrong thing. Jesus himself eventually forces the lawyer to admit it.
But it is the Samaritan, who is not only the alien/foreigner in this story—he’s the hated enemy—who does the right thing because he was, as Luke says, “Moved with compassion at the sight.” Wait a minute. Compassion trumps strict adherence to the law? Apparently for Jesus that’s exactly what it does. He puts the question to the lawyer: “Which of these three is neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” And the know-it-all lawyer responds, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus says in reply, “Go and do likewise.” Knowing the right answer is not the same as doing the right thing.
On this very weekend, foreigners are being deliberately targeted for arrest and deportation by agents of our government. Let’s allow our Sacred Scripture to help us to think about that.
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