Apparently, one of the signs of getting old is moaning about the overall demise of the world and claiming that it was better in the past. I think it\u2019s nonsense but – truly – music was much better in the 1980s than now\u2026 Another thing that was better in the past is quite a specific attitude in football. When a player on the pitch fell to the ground and stayed there, the opposite side would kick the ball out so the injured player could be checked out and treated by medical staff. That attitude even had its own term: fair play. Nowadays it\u2019s not rare to see the game going on regardless of a player lying on the ground; the game is being stopped only when someone has visibly broken their leg or lost their head. The attitude has changed because so many players have simulated the seriousness of their apparent injury in order to break the opposite side\u2019s counterattack or any other advantage. It wasn\u2019t the players\u2019 invention. A few years ago, the manager of a top Premier League club reprimanded his medical staff for getting onto the pitch to treat their own player; clearly, in his mind winning the game was more important than the player\u2019s wellbeing. There\u2019s little room for sentiment when \u201cgreater things\u201d are at stake.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to get sentimental when we read the parable in today\u2019s gospel. It\u2019s easy to get judgmental about the priest and the Levite who passed by without helping the injured man, though the parable doesn\u2019t directly condemn their lack of involvement. Jesus told the story as part of his answer to a challenge. \u201cThere was a lawyer who, to disconcert Jesus, stood up and said to him, \u2018Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?\u201d<\/em> The man\u2019s question must have been prompted by what he had just heard from Jesus, and he hadn\u2019t liked it, so we can almost hear a mixture of arrogance, irritation and superiority in his voice. Jesus\u2019 response referred to the lawyer\u2019s knowledge: \u201cWhat is written in the Law? What do you read there?\u201d<\/em> Suddenly, it was the man put on the spot and he passed the test splendidly by reciting the two commandments: the love of God and of neighbour. Jesus closed the exchange with a simple instruction, addressing the lawyer\u2019s initial question: \u201cYou have answered right, do this and life is yours.\u201d <\/em>I suppose the tone in Jesus\u2019 voice put emphasis on the phrase \u201cdo this\u201d<\/em> and that was the thing that wrongfooted the lawyer, who suddenly \u201cwas anxious to justify himself\u201d<\/em> so he asked: \u201cwho is my neighbour?\u201d<\/em> In response Jesus told the parable, ending with another question addressed to the lawyer. We\u2019ll come back to it in a moment. Now let\u2019s look at the parable a bit closer.<\/p>\n There are four main characters in it: the victim of unknown background, the Jewish priest and the Levite, and the Samaritan. The latter represented the nation as inferior in the eyes of the Jews, who thought of themselves as God\u2019s Chosen People, represented here by the priest and the Levite. Those two had to keep themselves ritually pure in order to perform their respective duties; getting in contact with a dead body would render them impure – think of the self-isolation requirement of yesteryear. The victim had been left \u201chalf-dead\u201d<\/em> so the risk for the priest and the Levite was significant. To put it simply, each of them had to quickly assess their priorities and the outcome was obvious as they moved on. Setting the Samaritan as the positive character, who took care of the victim, was deliberately outrageous to underline Jesus\u2019 final question: \u201cWhich of these three, do you think, proved himself a neighbour to the man who fell into the brigands\u2018 hands?\u201d<\/em> Such was the lawyer’s shock that he couldn\u2019t say \u201cthe Samaritan\u201d<\/em>; instead, he used the descriptive phrase: \u201cThe one who took pity on him.\u201d<\/em> Jesus closed the conversation by repeating His earlier advice: \u201cGo and do the same yourself.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n What did He mean? Should we all now go out and search for victims of violence and offer them first aid? Well, certainly learning basic first aid skills wouldn\u2019t do any harm and might come in useful in emergencies. But the parable in its context addressed something else: the lawyer\u2019s self-centredness. It was all about him as expressed in those words: \u201cwhat must I do?<\/u>\u201d<\/em> and \u201cwho is my neighbour?<\/u>\u201d<\/em> The latter was a desperate attempt to find useful criteria for grading people on their relative worthiness to the lawyer. Jesus turned that upside down in His conclusion of the parable: \u201cWhich of these three […] proved himself a neighbour to the man who fell into the brigands\u2018 hands?\u201d<\/em> The only important value to take into consideration was the lawyer\u2019s usefulness to others.<\/p>\n We have to remember that the parable presented a \u201cblack-and-white\u201d story; any nuance was lost for the sake of clarity of its moral. But everyday life is rarely like that. Unfortunately, there are people out there happy to take advantage of others\u2019 willingness to help and effectively live at their expense. Such exploitation can really make us less willing to help, as has happened with fair play in football. If help is to be effective, it must address the problem and more importantly, its causes. The right Christian attitude is described in a scene from the Acts of the Apostles when Peter and John came across a lame beggar sitting at the Temple gate. \u201cWhen he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, \u201cLook at us.\u201d And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, \u201cI have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.\u201d And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.\u201d (Acts 3:3-7)<\/em> Firstly, the Apostles assessed the situation: they looked intently at the man. Then they helped him to stand on his feet. Although it wasn\u2019t the help he\u2019d expected, he welcomed the long-term solution, as testified by the follow-up of this story. The resources at our disposal, be it financial, material or personal – like time – are finite and often scarce. But, when used wisely, they can be of help to others. In that way, we can show pity on those in need and prove to be neighbours to them.<\/p>\n Image by Alexander Fox | PlaNet Fox<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apparently, one of the signs of getting old is moaning about the overall demise of the world and claiming that it was better in the past. I think it\u2019s nonsense but – truly – music was much better in the 1980s than now\u2026 Another thing that was better in the past is quite a specific attitude in football. When a player on the pitch fell to the ground and stayed there, the opposite side would kick the ball out so the injured player could be checked out and treated by medical staff. That attitude even had its own term: fair play. Nowadays it\u2019s not rare to see the game going on regardless of a player lying on the ground; the game is being stopped only when someone has visibly broken their leg or lost their head. The attitude has changed because so many players have simulated the seriousness of their apparent injury in order to break the opposite side\u2019s counterattack or any other advantage. It wasn\u2019t the players\u2019 invention. A few years ago, the manager of a top Premier League club reprimanded his medical staff for getting onto the pitch to treat their own player; clearly, in his mind winning the game was more important than the player\u2019s wellbeing. There\u2019s little room for sentiment when \u201cgreater things\u201d are at stake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-c"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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