15^th Sunday in Ordinary Time C.  July 15, 2007.  Our Lady of Grace 9:30, 6PM. Deuteronomy 30: 10-14.  Colossians 1: 15-20.  Luke 10: 25-37.

On the Fourth of July I saw 1776 at the Guthrie.  This wonderful musical portrays the founders of our great land as they tried to write a document that would break the ties of the 13 Colonies with Great Britain and begin the difficult struggle to form these Untied States.  Every member of the Continental Congress was British by nationality and culture and sometimes by birth as well.  They all had relatives and friends in England.  One of the members of the Continental Congress said that they had to remember to be careful not to offend anyone in writing the Declaration of Independence.  At this comment the fiery John Adams, the second president of the future United States, rose up and said, “For heavens sake (his words were even stronger), for heavens sake we are having a revolution, someone is certainly going to be offended.”  In other words it is impossible to have a real revolution and truly change things, even for the better, without offending people.

The words spoken by Jesus in today’s gospel were very offensive to many of the people who heard them.  It appears that Jesus made the story of the Good Samaritan offensive purposely.   Jesus was talking to a Jewish scholar who knew the law and commandments of God and prided himself on following them. He had his religious quotation from the Bible memorized:  “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.”  Jesus answered, “That is correct, do this and you will live.”   The fact that the scholar wanted to justify himself gave Jesus the opportunity to tell a story illustrating the hypocrisy of many who profess to be religious because they keep the commandments without understanding the mind and heart of God.

Jesus said, “A man was beaten, stripped of his clotting and his possessions and left half dead by robbers.”  A priest – the symbol of religious holiness and righteousness, saw the half-dead man lying by the side of the road.  He avoided the man by passing by on the opposite side of the road.  The priest was religious.  He kept all the commandments.  He led people in worship – He was very religious, he just was not a very good person.

Jesus went on with his story saying that a Levite, who assisted the priests at worship, saw the half-dead man at the side of the road, and he avoided him by passing by on the other side of the road.   In public the Levite was a religious man.  In fact he was a hypocrite; he was not a very good person.

Samaritans were hated by the Jews.  They did not worship in the Jerusalem temple where all good Jews worshipped.  They did not believe in most of the Jewish Scriptures and in many of the basic teachings Jews believed came from God.  They intermarried with pagans and therefore were not regarded as real Jews.   In the popular mind Samaritans were the scum of the earth. Good and faithful members of God’s people had nothing to do with Samaritans.    When Jesus said that a Samaritan, a heretic, a believer in false worship, a man contaminated by paganism, stopped and helped the half-dead man and left money behind to pay for additional treatment, the hearers of Jesus words were deeply offended.  It was very clear that Jesus was saying that many of those who practiced their God-given Jewish faith were religious, but they were hypocrites and not really good people.  The Samaritan, who was wrong in his religious beliefs and practices, was in fact a very good and generous man.  Religion and goodness do not always go together.  It is a fact, that in some people’s lives religious rigor and goodness do not go together.

Jesus tells an offensive story purposely because Jesus was starting a religious and spiritual revolution.  It is impossible to have a true revolution without offending someone.  In fact, running the risk of offending some may be a very effective way of waking them up.

We can all see that fanatical Muslims who blow themselves up along with innocent women and children may be very rigorously religious.  At the same time they are very evil people.  We can all see that Christian religious sects like that of Jim Jones and his followers who committed mass suicide because of their religious convictions may be rigorously religious and at the same time not be good people.

In the mind of Jesus, religion that does not lead to active, compassionate and deep love and service to our neighbor is not the religion intended by God and taught by Jesus.  True religion and worship always makes the worshipper compassionate just as God is compassionate.   True worship always makes us like Jesus who showed his compassion for a suffering and half-dead human race by dying on the Cross.   True religion, goodness and compassion always go together in the mind and heart of Christ.

We have all met in ourselves or in others a demanding, judgmental, self-righteous, superior and controlling kind of rigorous Christianity that has little to do with the goodness reflected in the Cross of Christ.   Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council to help the Catholic Church relate more effectively and more compassionately with the modern world.  He is now Blessed John XXIII, the last step to sainthood and his body has been moved from the lower level of St. Peter’s to a prominent place in the main Church.  Hundreds of Romans still come to pray and cry at his burial place because he was a man of compassion and great kindness.  He once said that the key to leading well is to “See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little.”   In the revolution Jesus started religion and goodness always go together.  May our goodness witness to the truth of what we believe.