Making excuses

July 8, 2019
Deacon Faiva Po’oi
 
In the first reading, Moses comes to the end of his journey and speaks to the Israelites at length about their Covenant relationship and special bond with God. In the second reading, we hear of Christ’s involvement in creation and his work for the salvation of the world.
 
At first glance, the Gospel might seem to just be about obeying the two great Commandments – love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus, however, provides us with a more expansive understanding of “love” and teaches us how far we must go in loving others – even giving up personal gain for the good of another who might be very different from myself!
 
In the story of the Good Samaritan, we see the practical side of the teaching of Jesus. The Good Samaritan saw. He felt pity. He took appropriate action to help remedy the situation. The first step in love is to look beyond ourselves – to see – to pay attention to other people in need, especially the poor, the forgotten, the neglected and the marginalized. It is when we allow others in need to enter our comfort space – our lives – that we first open up ourselves as faithful Christians. Unfortunately, too often we erect barriers to prevent people from knocking on our doors. Certain people are barred because of prejudice or discrimination. We may justify our barriers, even falling back on one of poet Robert Frost’s lines: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
 
The next step in the account of the Samaritan was his emotional response: he was “moved with compassion” toward the injured traveler. Neither the priest nor the Levite made any move towards the injured man. Instead they chose to pass him by on the other side of the road. Compassion requires us to accept the pain of the other and also requires us to respond to it. By sharing tears in their sorrow or laughter in their joy, by empathizing with their pain or celebrating in their thankfulness, in giving to their emptiness or receiving from their fullness – this is compassion!
 
Being deeply attentive to others will enable us to be sensitive not only to what they say, but also to what they cannot say. Jesus did not just hear and answer the exact question posed to him by the lawyer. Instead, he chose to respond to something else, the need for an open heart! Jesus did not respond curtly but reached gently into the lawyer’s mind, and challenged him to a new way of thinking and responding to others.
 
The third step of the good neighbor was to take practical action. One of life’s greatest excuses is that we are waiting around for the ideal opportunity to act! The reality is that that the ideal opportunity will never come! The cartoonist Robert Short, father of the Charlie Brown family, once drew a cartoon with the caption: “I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand.”
 
At a time of trouble and challenge, an excuse may give us comfort, but it makes overcoming the difficulty virtually impossible. The best thing to do is to shoulder the responsibility for our own lives, including the difficulties, and say, “With God’s help and his grace, we shall rise above it.”
 
We do not know what happened to the lawyer in the Gospel. We hope that he found the courage to face the truth about himself and deal with it. Jesus Christ gave him that opportunity. Now Jesus is giving it to us. For us, too, it will not be easy to let go of our excuses. But if we are able to do this, Jesus will replace our excuses with something far better – a life changed by his grace.
 
We have already experienced the unceasing mercy of God more than we can ever repay. The gift of salvation, freely offered to us by Jesus, is something humanity neither anticipated nor requested. It was a free gift. We praise him and glorify him for the gift of salvation that came through the Holy Eucharist, the divine food for our journey.
 
Deacon Faiva Po’oi serves at St. Timothy Parish, San Mateo.