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Fifteenth Sunday - Cycle C
"Jesus Llama"/Jesus Calls courtesy of El Seminario Concilar de San Jose, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
Sacred Scriptures

Deuteronomy 30:10-14
Psalm 69
Colossians 1:15-20
Luke 10:25-37
Getting to Heaven really is not as complicated as we might think it is.  We have our Tradition that teaches us that we have to go to Mass regularly.  We have to confess our sins and celebrate the Reconciliation that God always extends to us.  We even have a system of states that the souls passes through on its way to heaven, such as purgatory (yes, we still believe in that).  At one time we thought our unbaptized children could never get into heaven because they died before water could be poured over their heads in the name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit.  We've constructed all these systems and perhaps even some superstitions about God and about how to get to God and gain eternal life.  These systems are not wrong.  They are a part of a rich Tradition given to us through the apostles.  But they are not worth anything if we don't put a human face and heart on them.

We've got it all wrong, at least our perspective and our means of implementing the systems and laws are wrong.  Eternal life is a gift that God extends to us because God loves us.  God shows us compassion.  There is no other reason that we have the promise of eternal joy in heaven other than God loves us unconditionally beyond our complex systems and even beyond our sins.  All God asks is that we treat one another with compassion.

Jesus so beautifully tells us a story of compassion by he first reaffirms the law.  Remember, Jesus did not come to undo the laws and Traditions.  He came to fulfill it and maybe to simplify if for us.  But after hearing the law, Jesus explains that knowing the law is not enough - just like knowing memorized prayers and attending Mass even daily is not enough.  We must live the spirit of the law.  Who passes the person who has been robbed and beaten and left to the side of the road to die?  It is the people who knew the law best:  the priests and rabbis.  Who carries the person on his horse and ensures the care and nursing of the injured person?  First of all, it is a Samaritan - an outcast - and second of all, it is probably just your ordinary person whose job was not to memorize the written law in scrolls but who nontheless responds to the law which God's love has sealed on the human heart.

In Jesus we have the simplification of the law.  Sin had and still does complicate the world.  But the Son of God takes on human flesh and shows us in the person of Jesus how to live the life that God calls us to.  Jesus gives a human face to the divine law and shows us that it's really not that difficult to live a life worthy of eternal reward.  All we have to do is love one another not through a system of complex regulations and statues, but by how we live our lives each day.               - Peace, Shaun Lowery
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