Life Is In The Doing

July 14, 2019 | In this week’s readings, it appears that God has a preferential option for the vulnerable and marginalized, for those we disregard or pass by. God loves everyone, even the oppressor, but God has a special care for the lost and forgotten.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan that we hear this week, the hero is a stranger, looked down upon by the good people of the community. The passage does not condemn the religious leaders who walk on by, it simply notes that they believed that they had better things to do than to help a wounded pilgrim. The Temple needed to be cared for and services led. Order needed to be maintained in the religious realm and this trumped the call of the moment, even if the call is to respond to obvious human need. Only a hated foreigner, an undocumented worker, a refugee, a person of the “wrong” race, stops to help and then gives generously. God not only hears the cries of the poor. God inspires the outsider to be our spiritual teacher showing us how God is moving in the have nots as well as the haves.