Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
My mother-in-law loves connections. She lights up when she retells a story of how some stranger’s grandmother was actually the next door neighbor of someone we all know and there is some long lost connection. As an in-law (or out-law) I can’t always keep up with her series of connections but they are still fun to listen to. Today I felt a little of that excitement when I saw a new connection between our reading in Galatians and the Gospel’s telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
As I read the two passages one after the other I found myself asking “what do I want to focus on”? The first thread that intrigued me was the question of “What is the crux of Paul’s Gospel?” The other thread was the unidentified victim in the Good Samaritan. In following those two threads, I found them intertwining.
In the Good Samaritan, there is one who remains largely anonymous. It is the traveler who fell victim to the robbers. This anonymity is important in appreciating the Samaritan’s response. The Samaritan's radical compassion and extravagant generosity is offered irregardless of who the victim is. To the Samaritan, there is a connection to the victim, no matter where this traveler is from. Granted, the person is going from Jerusalem to Jericho, which could imply that this is a Jewish person. Allegorically, this is also a person who is abandoning the city of peace for the city of sin. Yet, none of that matters in the moment as the Samaritan is confronted by a person in need. The Samaritan sees himself intrinsically connected to the victim.
This connectedness is what intertwines with Galatians. As I pondered St. Paul’s words I returned frequently to these words, “but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:12). I don’t wish to approach St. Paul’s Gospel too narrowly. Between St. Paul’s reflection on Jesus' incarnation, through the Holy Spirit, and by the working of God, I am sure he is preaching from a revelation that was a tremendous spiritual gift. That said, I did return to St. Paul’s first revelation of Jesus. And what did that revelation communicate as St. Paul’s vision was fading? Just this: Jesus Christ is alive and in living He is deeply, intimately, and intrinsically connected to all those living in him and they to each other. That connectedness is so intimate that Jesus says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me” (Acts 9:4)?
So what is my mother-in-law’s great joy in the face of unexpected connections? It is the celebration of something professed by St. Paul, and revealed and maintained by Jesus. We are intimately connected and we have no neighbor to whom we are closer than the one who is most in need. And, as Paul found when he was taken in by Annanais (cf.Acts 9:15-19), we sometimes have no closer neighbor than the one who is coming to us when we are in need.
May we, with great joy, see the interconnectedness of us all, held even closer by the very life of Jesus.
- Spencer Hargadon