MEDITATION: SAMARITAN WOMAN AND GOOD SAMARITAN – ICONS OF

RELIGIOUS LIFE… Jn 4; Lk. 10:25-37

Three Acts:
1. Look first at the scene of ‘emptiness’, chaos and need – keep your eyes on the main
characters. Look too to the scribe who engages Jesus in conversation in Luke.
2. Look at the creative action of Jesus on people; see their transformation.
3. Look at the other persons who have secondary roles; the Pharisees, the disciples, the
Samaritans who come to Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, the man attacked
by robbers and left half dead, the priest and the Levite who passed by, the innkeeper
who agreed to care for the injured man. Are some of these people our contemporaries?
‘In the Beginning was Need’:
Emptiness, Chaos, Need: The main characters are people at odds with the establishment -
they are Samaritans: having a dubious reputation, not trustworthy. The woman represents the
idea of ‘not having’; ‘she doesn’t have a husband’, and the man she has ‘isn’t her husband’.
The Scribe does not know how to gain eternal life, and is in need of something that he is
searching for: a feeling that he is justified. The woman and the scribe are searching for life.
The woman is yearning for the living water Jesus tells her about and the man desires to
possess eternal life. This makes both of them participants in the drama of the wounded, half
dead man in the parable. Jesus too is in a situation of being forsaken and vulnerable: He is a
stranger, thirsty, with no jug, unable to draw water from the well. In talking to the scribe, He
is at a disadvantage: an expert in the Law is staring him in the face and intending to put him
to the test. The journey through Samaria is dangerous and the behaviour of Jesus in asking a
woman for a drink breaks tradition. He too is one who is not having.
God, the Creator acted on the chaos and dust of earth so in the scenes of the Gospels,
something new is coming into being. Neither the situation of the woman or the scribe’s desire
to justify himself stands in the way of their encounter with Jesus. The woman’s testimony
will lead some Samaritans to faith and Jesus will reveal to His disciples that their food is
carrying out the will of the Father and that His encounter with the woman and the Samaritan
people is now part of the desired harvest.
The people who are comfortable with the existing order of things and take their superior
status for granted remain on the side-lines of change and transformation: the Pharisees, the
priest and the Levite. The man who is half-dead is at the centre of the parable, he is in the
ditch, at ground level. It is from there that transformation begins for him.
‘And God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.’
Creative Action
Listen to the words Jesus addresses to the people, and observe His creating and recreating
actions on them. He is the one who has the leading role and ‘authors’ the strategies of the
encounter. He is the skillful potter who gives the eater of life (as God gave breath and brought
life). The Samaritan man, made in the image and likeness of God is proposed to the scribe as
a model: ‘Go and do likewise’.
As a skillful fisherman, Jesus casts His net for the Samaritan woman and the scribe to wean
them from their trivial pursuits and desire for self-justifications.
As a good shepherd who knows His sheep, He leads them out of the desert of superficiality
and leads them to the land of Gift; the living water and saving of life. He shows that He has
the power to move them to the fountain of living water and the fresh green pastures in which
He makes them lie down.
As a master of wisdom and skilled conversationalist, He uses all the resources of the spoken
word and devises strategies to win people over; He questions, He argues, proposes,
persuades, narrates, suggests, affirms, values the viewpoint of the other and extends
invitations. He goes along with the woman and the scribe in their evasive tactics and uses
these to reach them in a place from which they cannot escape; they must face up their truth or
their ignorance: ‘I don’t have a husband…’, ‘Who is my neigbour?’ First, He enters into their
point of view in order to lead them to where He wants. He does not retreat in dealing with the
defences the woman puts up or with the Scribe’s attempt to take refuge in the theoretical. He
keeps on trying different tactics to maintain their interest. In the conversation with the
woman, He is leading her to see who He is and who she is.
As a friend interested in building personal relationships; At no time does He render moral
judgments of disapproval or rebuke; instead of accusing, He prefers to dialogue and propose,
uses a language aimed at the heart of those with whom He is speaking, and utilises an ‘open
space’ strategy.
In the conversation with the woman, the expressions ‘if you know who it is who is telling
you…’, serves as an ‘opening’ and creates a space between the two of then in which she feels
appreciated and can ask questions: the identity of Jesus (‘a Jew’), so clear from her when the
dialogue began, comes into question. And in working with the opening He has given her,
Jesus works slowly. He does not rush to put Himself front and centre, but advances ‘in a
spiralling way’, to little by little awaken the woman’s interest in assessing a fountain of an
‘other’ life.
In the dialogue with the scribe, Jesus does not respond to the man’s question by teaching him
a lesson or arguing with him on his own terms; again He looks for an ‘opening’ between the
two of them to provide the man with an opportunity to discover on his own the answer to his
question. By means of the parable, Jesus manages to turn around the scribe’s concept of
neighbour, rooted in the soil of his traditions. Jesus leads the questioner to another sphere in
which the expert is not ‘the one who knows’ but ‘the one who does’.
As a consummate artist and painter, Jesus traces the outlines of the Samaritan man, creating –
does he realise it? – his own self portrait. In this image of a compassionate man who
approaches the wounded one, we see reflected the values, the convictions and preferences of
Jesus Himself; His theology, catechesis, image of the Kingdom and prophetic criticism; what
He considers important and not important (cult, temple, observance …); what He considers
sin, omission or virtue and the code of conduct He proposes. Thus, the icon of the Good
Samaritan becomes an illustration of the beatitudes.
As an expert in humanity, Jesus shows Himself to be profoundly attentive and interested in
the interior life of those who question Him. In the heart of the scribe, He reads the intention
to put Him to the test, and later to justify himself. In that of the Samaritan man, He stresses
that compassion was the basis for his behaviour towards the wounded man. In the woman’s
heart, He uncovers the wellspring capable of bursting from the depths of her soul, contrasting
with ancient law and external commandments. He also reveals to her the inner life of the
Father and the seeking taking place within Him.
As a prophet possessed by the fire of the Absolute in God and spurred on by His justice, He
questions, shakes up, and strips His opponents of whatever excuses or compromised
principles that are distancing or distracting them from the basic underlying truth unavoidably
affecting their lives; that God is our Father and men and women are neighbours.
‘God blessed them…’ ‘and so man became a Living Being’
The people in these two stories (the Samaritan woman, the scribe …) are summoned to a
‘new creation’ and given a choice: to hang on to their old knowledge and beliefs, searching
for living water and justification in the dried-up wells of shrines, laws and customs, or to
choose ‘eternal life’ and allow themselves to be taken in by Jesus’ offer to transform and
transfigure their lives.
A PASCHAL PROCESS
In both texts there is a transition from one way of thinking and judging to another, from
various customs, structures and convictions to others and in this “Paschal Process” we
witness ‘a death’. What seemed to be definitive turns out to be provisional, and the main
supports and assurances, in effect at the beginning of each text, display their inability to
transmit ‘living water’ and ‘eternal life’. They are overcome by the newness of the behaviour
and words of Jesus:
The letter of the Law, to which the scribe was clinging for justification, appears to be a
medium incapable of granting him life and answering his question about who his neighbour
is. The woman represents those trying to quench their thirst in the tradition of their ancestors,
whereas the scribe only knows his neighbour in terms of erudition. Jesus invites His hearers
to welcome a free gift; they are not to focus on themselves but on how they relate to their
peers. He appeals to the human being in need, everyone by implication. The old institutions
are replaced by the new way of His flesh; His own humanity becomes the meeting place.
True wisdom is in showing one’s humanness.
Just knowing is seen to be sterile: both the scribe and the woman ask questions … What is to
be known of the Messiah is the focus; Jesus invites them to go beyond a list of data in order
to enter into truth through concrete reality. Jacob’s well, a symbol of the wisdom given by the
Law, as well as what is written in it lose their effectiveness and are replaced by living water
and the call – not to read about but to observe real people and behaviours- and act like the
Samaritan. It is by doing, not knowing, that one obtains life. Thanks to the words of Jesus,
one gains access to the newness of such knowledge.
Gender roles seem to be overcome: the woman becomes a witness and evangeliser. The
Samaritan is someone who generates life by taking care of the half-dead man. His actions are
often considered feminine and maternal.
PEOPLE TRANSFORMED
The Samaritan woman enters the scene as ‘a woman from Samaria’ and leaves as someone
very knowledgeable about the spring of ‘living water’, aware that the Father is looking for
her to worship Him. Her transformed identity makes her an evangeliser, who by her
testimony, persuades other people to approach Jesus and believe in Him. She who was talking
about ‘drawing water’ as a task costing great effort now abandons her jug; Jesus has
uncovered a gift for her, on that does not require anything in exchange, that is freely
bestowed upon her.
The Samaritan man, who enters the scene anonymously, identified only by his ethnic
background, reveals his true identity at the end. The mercy dwelling in his heart leads him to
act as neighbour for the one depending on him for survival. Jesus gives him a new name: the
one who had compassion. The scribe is challenged to become like the Samaritan! Jesus, tired
and dusty at the beginning of the story, reveals Himself as the spring of living water, as Lord,
prophet, Messiah, Saviour of the world. He defines Himself by His capacity for interpersonal
relationships: ‘the one who is speaking with you’. He speaks with authority: ‘Believe me,
woman’, ‘Do this and you will live’, ‘Do likewise’ (to the scribe).
The image of God has been transformed. He is not a distant and impassive deity, one
dwelling in shrines made of human hands; nor is He a dictator of laws, an eternal recipient
demanding gifts and sacrifices in the temple. In Jesus, He reveals Himself as a God who
generates life, who gives and who searches, who can be called Father and who does not allow
Himself to become self-absorbed or possessive because He is Spirit. If he searches for us, it is
because He desires to broaden our experience and communicate joy and fullness of life to us.
To find Him we don’t have to gaze upward because He came down to a bush in the desert,
flows as a fountain in the depths of every heart and reveals His presence in wounded people
left for dead in roadside ditches. According to the best prophetic tradition, the worship in
spirit and in truth that He is looking for is within reach of anyone who approaches another to
lend a helping hand. While the priest and Levite went out of their way to avoid getting hands
dirty and remain ready to offer sacrifice, the Samaritan, an outside to the world of sacrifice,
did not need to look for his offering someplace else; he had within himself the only thing that
God asks for: mercy and compassion (cf. Mi. 6:8).
We do not see a ‘normal’ typical ending that we might expect - the woman returning to the
village with the jug filled with water; the scribe would be pleased with himself having spelled
out the law and received a response in the context of theory… Rather, the two of them are
offered another view of things that challenges them, a surprising and unseen development
leading to a life-giving relationship (water that bursts into eternal life…, ‘do this and you
shall live…’). In both cases, a breaking point from the former way of doing things (drawing
water, finding answers to questions or continuing a journey in the case of the people in the
parable) is the condition for accessing a greater event (receiving ‘living water’, becoming a
‘neighbour’, and practising ‘mercy’). The jug, empty and left by the wayside and the deeds of
the good Samaritan who generously gives of his own belongings (oil, wine, money,) give
testimony that it is through loss and generous service that one gains life.
AN OPEN ENDING
However, the outcome is different in the two texts. While the path taken by the woman leads
to a new relationship, and spurred on by Jesus, she widens the circle of her involvement with
others, the scribe appears to be faced with a fork in the road. We do not know if he will
remain imprisoned in his legalistic world, if he will try to avoid coming near the robbery
victim, or if, as the Samaritan did, he will look for eternal life wherever it is found: in those
deprived of life. The work of profound conversion that Jesus undertakes with this scribe
remains open-ended. As He did with blind Bartimeus, Jesus asks him in a subliminal way:
What do you want me to do for you? and he offers another perspective, an anchoring different
from his own ego: the person of the other. The scribe, not being able to see, presumed that the
nation of neighbour was defined in relation to himself, and he tried to pinpoint the border
between those who were his neighbours and those who were not. But the perspective that
Jesus proposed to him was totally different: ‘It is not for you to decide who your neighbour
is; rather you should demonstrate your neighbourliness for every human being in need. The
person who needs your help is at the centre, not you. Think about the Samaritan man: he is an
icon in his willingness to change plans and give freely, made in the image and likeness of
God Himself. From him we learn that justice that opens out to eternal life; when a man was
incapable of saving his own life, the Samaritan chose life for him; and the only evidence he
left behind was that very life’.
WHAT DIRECTION ARE THE PROTAGONISTS ‘PULLING US’?
In the hand of the Samaritan woman: If the woman took us by the hand, what would she
say to us and where would she bring us?
Surely, she would invite us to accompany her to Jacob’s well and tell us how she arrived there
with the empty jug of her needs and distracting cares, all of which proved to be no problem at
all for the man who was waiting for her to accomplish his work in her. And she would tell us
that if she learned anything from Jesus at that time, it is that He is not put off by our
defensiveness and the things that we cling to. Rather, as the Son always acting according to
the example of His Father (Cf. Jn. 5:19), He searches for that fracture in our makeup from
which our deepest yearnings emerge, as if He were convinced that only a greater desire can
put lesser ones in their place. That may be why He let her go on telling Him about her
prejudices, wariness, and misgivings, until the thirst for life that she was hiding in her heart
revealed itself, and then He pounced on that desire; ‘if only you knew the gift of God…’.
Without the zeroing on her fracture, she would not have recognised her unsatisfied needs;
with His focusing on it, He would have her return home with her jug filled with a water that
was not quenching her thirst.
If we asked her about her desire, she would encourage us never to let anyone or anything
snuff out or cast aside the desires we experienced when we first chose to follow Jesus in the
Religious Life. Rather, she would have us always keep them vivid and waiting to be fulfilled,
because the best of our humanness and everything that allows us to remain open and filled
with expectation from that Gift that we never comprehend is hidden in them.
And concerning her experience as a missionary for the people in her village, the Samaritan
woman might tell us about her strategy for leading them to Jesus. From Him she had also
learned how to become an expert in humanity, how to connect with dormant desires in the
depth of each soul and look for those fractures that enable grace to pass through, because it is
where the Lord is already at work. But for such a mission it is better for ‘people-
professionally-accomplished and busy-about-spiritually-inconsequential commitments’ to
take a back seat. Only ‘those who search for wells’, who are capable of approaching and
getting in touch, of spending time and getting to the bottom of things, can help others shed
light on the spring of living water that they have within themselves.
The woman would try to convince us of the importance of our accompanying and sustaining
each other in the faith, learning how to reread life together and make it possible for each one
to share the water of his or her experience. She might reveal how curious she is to know
where we channel the torrents of our emotions and whether or not our vows are giving our
deep-seated dynamism the apostolic orientation that it had in the life of Jesus. And maybe she
would even ask us to name our husbands, those realities that we strike deals with and that
separate us from our centre:
- The husband ‘of uninformed and conformist nonsense’, who would have us believe
that there is no hope for this world (‘that’s how it goes in the market economy’,…’it is
the price to pay for technological progress’) and the most sensible thing we can do is
get along with the way things are, ‘go with the flow’.
- The ‘neo-liberal, consumerist husband’, who deceptively lures us towards ‘keeping up
with the Joneses’. The one who creates an ever-growing need for creature comforts
and makes us think it is normal to live in the lap of luxury, far removed from any risk
taking. The one who camouflages our resistance to everything that threatens to get us
out of our rut of labelling it ‘prudence’. When we live that way, the ‘loony idea’ that
first motivated us to follow Jesus is snubbed out, our outlook becomes clouded and
we lose sight of the places here below that call for our involvement.
- The ‘individualist husband’, who blinds us to fountains that bring change, who
seduces us with the easy-going ways of trivial and dissipated life in which the pain of
others, the awe of God’s presence and disturbing reminders of His Gospel fail to
touch our hearts.
- The ‘pseudo-therapist husband’, who banks on psychology as the ultimate explanation
for everything; who is always suspicious of our desires, invariably denying that they
come from a transcendent source. The one who places us on a level of seemingly
indisputable positivism that claims everything stems from the innermost recesses of
our psyche and that anything else is but an illusion. In that way he denies the
possibility that our freedom can be extended beyond ourselves.
- The ‘secularist husband’, who leads us away form the well, from our deeply moving
encounter with the Lord and mystical experiences; the one who has us base our lives
on ethical standards alone, who secularises our hearts and takes away our ability to
express spiritual experience. out of this is born that inability to talk about the sublime,
our fear in the presence of mystery and symbol, fossilised liturgies and an apostolic
activism in which there is neither time nor space for playful, silent, easy-going and
constant prayer.
- The ‘spiritualist husband’, who strives to keep erecting shrines and escape to the
heights of new rites and reformist agendas with hazy new age characteristics,
unrelated to the realities of everyday life.
- The ‘idoliser husband’, who gets us to worship the media and its instruments,
institutions, rites and laws, having nothing to do with a return to what is religious and
making it more and more difficult for us to give the Father the adoration that He seeks
from us.
 - The ‘thousand-things-to-do husband’, who hides behind the old dynamics of looking
for justification through works. The one who sees us more as givers than receivers,
and converts apostolic figures or old age into real traumatic situations, because that is
when work loses its absolute claim on us.
The Samaritan woman, freed from all her idolatries, would tell us above all: “Be patient with
how slow the process is when you break off your ties with those husbands. Be sure that in
each one of your lives there is a well and that the Master is waiting for you there, seated on a
ledge. Trust in His spellbinding power, His patience as He penetrates your defences, His
desire to lead you to the depths of your lives and the interior fountains known only to
yourself, because He knows how to accompany that descent without rushing or losing
patience. When I heard Him twice say ‘the water that I want to give…’, I knew that He was
filled with a fierce desire to submerge all of us in its swift-flowing stream. Don’t rest satisfied
with what you know about Him: engage in the process of intimacy to which you too have
been blessed to be invited. At first, I thought of Him as nothing more than a Jew, but He was
leading me to the point of discovering Him as Lord, Prophet, Messiah, the One I had always
been waiting for without knowing it. Have the audacity to give Him new names, that will
never show up in the boring manuals lining your library shelves.
Don’t be afraid to acknowledge the thirst that dwells in you. And don’t deceive yourselves
into believing that your life as consecrated men and women exempts you from the
uncertainties and vulnerability that throb in the heart of every human being. Change your
attitude of being never-ending donors and see yourselves as travellers with those who travel
and seekers with those who are seeking. Because only then will you experience the joyful
surprise of being evangelised by the very people you want to evangelise. Learn how to listen
better and instead of preaching and directing so much, become experts in asking questions,
conversing and sharing with others that poverty that puts us all in the same boat. Because
only if you experience your thirst, will you be able to fathom what I learned by the well: the
thirsty man who asked me for water turned out to be the one who quenched my thirst, and
later made me decide to tell everyone in my town about Him. And precisely because I knew I
needed salvation, I was able to get across to others that I had met someone who welcomed me
without judging or condemning me. Come celebrate that poverty with me, by the ledge of the
well. It is a poverty that when recognised and related to Christ, is not an obstacle to receiving
the gift of living water but the best chance we have to welcome it and let it burst into eternal
life.
But I caution you, be ready: He may be waiting for you anywhere, anytime of the day, just
when you are engrossed in trivial concerns, petty quarrels or stales traditions bound up with
status and rules. If you stop to listen to Him, you will be under His spell forever. At first, He
will ask you for something simple (‘Please give me some water’, …’Call your husband’)…
but in the end, you will return home without water, without a jug, and with a burst you have
never known before, to attract the whole town to Him.
Welcome the astounding news that is the Father who is searching for you and wants your
adoration. Don’t be afraid to that message, so strange to the ears of the world, because it is
that other land to which you, like Abraham, have been summoned. Leave behind the old
familiar places that sustained you and enter into that passionate relationship with the Lord
and His Kingdom in which, as Benedict of Nursia used to say, nothing interferes with His
love. A relationship that becomes a way of life, as the psalmist proclaimed: “Your love is
better than life”. (Ps. 63:4)
In the hand of the Samaritan man: if the Samaritan man were to take us by the hand, what
would he say and where would he take us?
More than listening to him – he seems to be a man of few words, we take time to contemplate
the scene described by Jesus, keeping in mind that an icon is not a reflection of the life we are
already living and being; it manifests the other to us, the ideal we have yet to reach, the
distance that we have to travel for conversion. It places us in front of the look that penetrates
our hearts and enables us to encounter the true face of our neighbour.
Jesus puts Himself into the story – It is a picture of Himself.
We look at the scene as if we are already a part of it:
- We are amazed at the stark realism of the artist, who spares no bleak details: as assault
by robbers, a man stripped, beaten up and left half dead; two ‘qualified’ passers-by
who hurry on their way (we think of abuse in the world today and the many who
are indifferent).
- And when the story relentlessly tries to convince us, that evil has the last word in
everything, and that the situation is hopeless, the narrator presents another figure…
‘but a Samaritan’… Where does the man come from? In the midst of many signs of
death, the Samaritan who enters the scene does not seem to possess many resources.
He does not belong to any centre of power that backs him and assures him of prestige
or influence; he is a foreigner, travelling alone, with nothing but a saddlebag and his
mount. But his eyes are very observant and his heart has gotten in sync with the
rhythm of another.
- Ant then he takes the minimal and immense step of walking over to the falling man.
When others have gone out of their way to avoid him, without paying the slightest
attention to his needs, the Samaritan is moved by the wounded man and feels
responsible for his forlorn condition. The urgency of caring for the one in need
interrupts his travel plans and puts all his projects on hold. His deep concern about the
endangered life of the other takes precedence over his own plans and brings out the
best in him: an ego unencumbered by self. He is a foreigner; no kinship or ethnic
solidarity obliges him to take care of someone else, yet he stops and comes to the
man’s aid. He is a traveller who dismounts, changes his itinerary and kneels down
beside the man; he holds different religious beliefs, yet acts as his brother’s keeper.
He interprets the commandment; ‘Thou shalt not kill’ to mean ‘You will do whatever
it takes for the other to live’. Total readiness to change our plans is contained in our
identity. The reaction of the Samaritan man is the logic of Jesus: ‘Don’t measure,
don’t calculate, give into love. The others will be the ones who give you back your
identity, just when you thought you were going to die.’
- We stop to contemplate the man half dead: The one at the centre of the scene leads
us to believe that it was natural for Jesus to look at things from an earthly standpoint,
through the eyes of those who live well or poorly in the direst circumstances. Jesus,
the One who was born in the countryside on the outskirts of Bethlehem and will dies
outside the walls of Jerusalem, ‘pulls up stakes’ and pitches His tent where nobody
expects: in the dispossessed, those cast down and excluded, exactly where all hope
 seems lost. We will always find Him on the outside with those whom the world has
hurled far from itself.
- ‘He took care of him’: ‘Take care of him’; The Samaritan man will later say to the
innkeeper. This is a ‘feminine’ expression, showing deliberation and tenderness, in
contrast to our high-placed lives and impatience for immediate results. This human
dimension of caring can soothe our community relationships with its warmth, break
down our defences, overcome the coldness that can make our celibacy gloomy, and let
us show kindness, warmth and tenderness. (‘Half-dead’ members in our communities?
Capacity for showing compassion makes us like God! ‘Half elements’ in each one? A
call to new hope, new life).
Do we need the great Samaritan, Jesus, to come up to us, to heal our wounds, and pour oil of
consolation and the wine of His power on them? In our frailty, isn’t the Kairos of discovering
a new road before us, a road in which strength is manifested in weakness and life in death?
Isn’t this the time to wholeheartedly trust in God who is developing something new with our
poverty and our loss, and to accept being ‘bearers of the marks of Jesus’ in the Church, a
weak, always fragile and never-finished reality. We have, after all, already decided to follow
Jesus in a radical way. And there was no guarantee that the road would be easy!
At last we arrive at the inn: Once again the place features care, but now everything happens
‘inside’ a house, within walls (and institution).
How do we make our structures places of care, welcome places that offer stability and
permanence, and prepare us to get back on the road? The institutions exist to generate
‘meaningful relationship’ and to provide convenient structures and places of meeting. In the
inn, it does not matter what task we have – the mission of the inn is not only to preserve our
memory of our inheritance and strengthen our bonds, but, above all, to make it easier for the
human cause to resonate in us as God’s cause, and help us to become a coordinated and well-
conditioned body at the service of a wounded world.
From the hand of the scribe: If the scribe were to take us by the hand, what would he say to
us and where would he lead us?
Maybe he would sit us down next to his desk covered with old rolled up manuscripts and
commentaries on the Torah, and tell us how, from his boyhood days, he got used to observing
the Law, never knowingly breaking even a single one of its precepts. His constant concern
was to find out how to reach eternal that is true life, and abundant, profound, overflowing life
beyond the limitations of time, human weakness and the dissolution of relationships… In
pursuit of this goal, he consecrated his life to reading and research, and thus, held discussions
with other scribes, subsequently writing down on parchments that he zealously preserved. He
spent the best years of his life studying the Scriptures… but the teaching he mastered became
a burden with its complicated propositions and subtle treatises.
He had heard about the itinerant Galilean preacher, with a band of disciples around him, who
was leaving behind an air of joy and freedom wherever he went. He decided to go and see
this man… He wanted to expand his knowledge. With a mixture of curiosity and arrogance he
poses his question. To his dismay, Jesus referred him back to the well-known answer in the
Law. He quoted the Shema … and then poses another question, ‘And who is my neighbour?’
Then came the shock – The teacher began to tell a story that had nothing to do with what the
scribe learned. The name of God was never mentioned, the respected figures did not measure
up, the law of not touching a dead body was flouted… And Jesus proposed following the
example of a heretical Samaritan schismatic in order to become a neighbour! The invitation
to leave behind the ‘roads’ known was given! Compare the priest and Levite to a Samaritan –
their lives look sterile and empty; their hearts numb so that they could not react to the half-
dead man. Jesus has placed the emphasis on compassion and tells the scribe ‘Do likewise’.
Return to the world of certainties in the manuscripts or go to the downtrodden to receive
eternal life?
Do we recognise ourselves in the person of the scribe? We loved the Lord… but after the
statements and documents we feel empty. ‘Abandon your world… listen to the clamour of the
real people… Go off the safe tracks. The Samaritan did not have to use many words. He did
not compare himself with others. He simply did the job.
Jesus comes to us with living water and with compassion. He invites us to put the Kingdom
in the first place in our lives. He comes to each one to heal the wounds and remove our
limitations. He invites us to accompany him to the places where life is most at risk, and to
trust in the secret power of compassion and unflinching hope. Because he, who already sees
the tassel of wheat in the tiny grain sown in the earth, and listens to the screams of the
emerging baby as the woman is still crying out from the pangs of childbirth (cf. Jn. 16:21),
reveals life’s hidden possibilities for us just when it seems that death has had the last word.
He is the giver of Living Water, the Samaritan who heals our wounds, the Conqueror of
death, the Potter of the new creation.
Happy are we when we allow Him to captivate and lead us.