Luciano Audisio, Secretary General of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, proposes a profound and experiential reading of the Gospel of the Good Samaritan. A parable that speaks to us not only of ethics and compassion, but also of the mystery of salvation and of a God who becomes our neighbor to heal our wounds and teach us to live in gratuity.
A question that reveals much more
Today’s Gospel offers us one of the most moving and well-known parables of Jesus: that of the Good Samaritan. A text that has inspired Christian spirituality, art, social compassion… and that Pope Francis has taken as the central icon of his encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
However, this passage is not limited to telling an exemplary story. In reality, it stems from a profound dialogue, from a question that a doctor of the Law addresses to Jesus:
“Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? “(διδάσκαλε, τί ποιήσας ζωὴν αἰώνιον κληρονομήσω;)
And here we already find a first tension. Because this man, deep down, is trying to justify himself(δικαιῶσαι ἑαυτόν). Sometimes we live like this: we spend much of our life trying to justify what we do, looking for reasons to feel righteous, when in reality what we can’t stand is having to be forgiven, is recognizing that we need mercy.
Inheriting what cannot be bought
The question it raises is not a minor one:
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
The word eternal life (ζωὴ αἰώνιος) does not refer only to what comes after death. It refers to a good, beautiful, meaningful life. To that depth of existence that we so often avoid. We live on the surface, in two dimensions, escaping the abyss of truth.
And the paradox is obvious: he asks what he has to do to inherit. But the Greek verb κληρονομέω(kleronoméō) means “to receive as an inheritance,” something that is not bought, but received freely. He asks as if he wants to pay, but he speaks of something that can only be received as a gift.
Love of God and love of neighbor: a synthesis of the Torah
Jesus, as a good teacher, does not answer directly, but returns the question. And the doctor of the Law gives an extraordinary answer: he unites love of God and love of neighbor. A profound synthesis of the Torah. Because only he who thanks God for how he has been created, with his gifts and his limits, can open himself to the other.
The limit is not a hindrance: it is a condition for the relationship. If there were no limits, there would be no other. This is why love of neighbor is born of a grateful look at God.
Who is my neighbor?
But the doctor insists. He wants to delimit the terrain, he wants to know:
“Who is my neighbor? “(τίς ἐστίν μου πλησίον;)
And it is here that Jesus tells the parable. We know what happens: a man goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho – a real, physical road, but also symbolic of the descent of life, of risk, of human suffering. This man is assaulted, wounded, left half dead.
The Samaritan: compassion that stirs the heart
A priest and a Levite pass by. Jericho was full of priests serving in the Temple. That road was traveled by religious people. But none of them stops. Perhaps for fear of impurity, of touching blood. They have their reasons. Good reasons. But they don’t stop.
And then a Samaritan appears. A foreigner. The one who was not supposed to stop… and yet he does. And he doesn’t just stop: “he had compassion.”(δὼν ἐσπλαγχνίσθη).
That word in Greek means a quivering in the bowels, like that of a mother. This Samaritan behaves like a mother: she cleans, cares, anoints, carries, takes to an inn – the πανδοχεῖον, which literally means “the place that welcomes all.” There he takes care of him, pays and promises to return.
Saving through each other
Have you ever wondered how that injured person woke up the next day?
He wakes up, looks around, and asks the innkeeper:
“Who saved me? A relative? Someone from my tribe? A Hebrew?”
And the answer puzzles him: it was a Samaritan. One who had nothing to do with him. One despised by his people. And this is profoundly evangelical: we are saved by those from whom we would not want to be saved ..
Jesus is the Good Samaritan
Jesus is the stranger who bursts into our lives, who breaks our categories, who becomes our neighbor before we even know who we are. And this wounded man, knowing that this man will return, feels a new desire born within him: to know him, to love him, to imitate him.
This parable tells us about Jesus. He is the Good Samaritan. He is the one who has come down from heaven to the path of our life. He is the one who has seen our wound and has been deeply moved. And He has entrusted our care to the inn – which the Fathers of the Church identify with the Church – and has promised to return. Our whole life then becomes this waiting. And while we wait, we want to do the same.
“Go and do the same.”
“Go and do likewise“Jesus tells us. For it is only when we discover that we have been saved gratuitously that the desire to live this same gratuitousness is born in us.
The great revolution of this parable is not only ethical, it is ontological: we become neighbors… because Jesus first became our neighbor.