15th Sunday in Ordinary Time - C 2025

It’s a common tendency to find loopholes when we don’t like a rule.  A teacher once told his chatty class to stop talking, and a girl began singing instead, saying, “You told us not to talk, but you didn’t say anything about singing.”  It’s human nature to look for the bare minimum we can do while technically following a rule.  We love loopholes, don’t we?

We can take the same approach with our faith, asking, “What’s the least I can do to be right with God?” But Jesus challenges this attitude in today’s Gospel.

A scholar of the law approaches Jesus and asks “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  But the scholar knows the law: “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.”

Notice how often the word “all” appears.  When we properly love, we do not give the bare minimum.  We give it all.  We are called to love God totally and our neighbors as ourself.  And yet how often do we ask ourselves “What’s the least I can do to meet the requirements to be a good Christian and get by?  What’s the bare minimum to be right with God?  What are the big sins I can’t do and what are the few good things I must do?”  But this is not an attitude of love.  A boy who’s in love with a girl doesn’t ask himself “What’s the cheapest thing I can get her for her birthday?”  Rather, he will take this as an opportunity to express his love.  He does not ask himself “What’s the least I can do?” but rather he asks himself “What more can I give?”  Love seeks to give and to give radically.  But we are all weak and tempted to apathy and minimalism – neither of which should have any place in our relationship with God.  He wants all that we have and all that we are.  He wants us to properly love our neighbor as ourselves.

Jesus tells the scholar that he gives a good answer.  Follow these laws and you will live.  But then the scholar asks “Who is my neighbor?”  Now I don’t know what the motives might be for the scholar to ask this question.  That’s not explicitly made clear from the text.  This may be mere speculation, but perhaps the scholar is intimidated by the demands of this law.  And if you can narrowly define who your neighbor is then it cuts out a bunch of people you would otherwise be obliged to love.  In other words, he could be saying “Well if I have to love my neighbor let’s make this neighbor category as small as possible.”  He may be looking for a law less demanding.

We are then given the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The love of the good Samaritan is all encompassing.  He goes out of his way to care for the robber’s victim.  It’s a risk for him.  Since he is a Samaritan he could be accused of being the one who harmed the victim.  When he leaves the victim at the inn he pays for his care and even offers to cover any additional costs.  He doesn’t count the cost or care about the inconvenience.  His love is radical and all encompassing.

Notice one more thing.  The Gospel passage says that the Samaritan was moved with compassion for the victim.  It wasn’t that the Samaritan begrudgingly helped the robber’s victim because he knew that the law said he should love his neighbor as himself.  No, he was moved with compassion.  It was not that the Samaritan acted but rather he was acted upon by love, by being moved with compassion.

Notice two truths our Lord highlights in this parable.  First, our love is supposed to be radical.  It is meant to be all encompassing, holding nothing back.  Love must not be tainted by apathy or minimalism.  Second, this love is not something that we muster up ourselves or something we achieve but rather it is something to be received.  The first letter of John says “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19).  Loving God and our neighbor as ourselves must be the work of God within us.  Keeping the commandments of God should be the result of allowing ourselves to be moved by the love of God, just as the Good Samaritan was moved with compassion.  If we follow the laws of God merely out of a sense of obligation then our relationship with God will be tainted with apathy and minimalism.  But when we know that we are loved by God, and we receive the love of God by keeping our eyes fixed on Him, following the law is sweet and easy.  The law becomes a joy.  Showing mercy and care towards our neighbor, reverence and worship towards God, it all becomes a joy because we are animated not from self interest but by the love of God.

So, if you catch yourself saying, “I have to pray,” or “I have to be patient with this person,” take it as a gentle alarm bell, a sign to pause and remember how God has loved you first.  We’re not meant to drag ourselves through the Christian life, ticking off good deeds like boxes on a list.  We’re meant to live in the freedom of being loved by a God who gave everything for us.  And when we focus on that love – taking five quiet minutes in the morning to thank Him, or recalling His mercy in confession – the demands of love stop feeling like demands.  Loving our neighbor, forgiving a family member, showing kindness to a draining coworker – these no longer feel like things we have to do, but become the natural response of a heart learning to love as it has been loved.