GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH
CARRY ON MY MISSION! Not long before the episode which we heard about in our Gospel reading today, Jesus had 14TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME sent out the Twelve on a mission of preaching the Kingdom, accompanied and illustrated by works of healing and exorcism. Now, Jesus sends out a larger group with a similar commission and they come back to report that their mission has been successful. We might note that, for Luke, the Twelve are essentially disciples of Jesus among a wider group. They have been specially chosen
from this larger number, among whom Luke specifically mentions women by name. Thus, the sending of the seventy-two mirrors the sending of the Twelve. The twelve apostles represent symbolically the twelve tribes of Israel. They are, in the Gospel tradition, essentially witness to the risen Jesus, but are eclipsed very shortly by the deacons and then by the apostle Paul, who had not known Jesus during Jesus’ earthly life. Luke shows that Jesus includes the wider group of disciples in his mission: it is not restricted to Peter and the other members of the Twelve. Jesus tells the disciples that if the citizens
WHOSE NEIGHBOUR ARE YOU? In today’s Gospel extract, we hear of a hostile encounter between a 15TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME lawyer, who obviously wants to catch Jesus out on a point of law, and Jesus himself. Jesus sidesteps the trap of being lured into a legalistic debate on theoretical questions by getting straight to the heart of the matter: what is the moral value at stake here? Jesus answers his interrogator by placing love of one’s neighbour equivalent to one’s love of God. Love, in the Bible, does not refer to an
emotional attachment, but has more the sense of proper treatment, respect, concern. Jesus’ illustration by the parable of the Good Samaritan is an exquisite treatment of this theme. We are, in our reading of today’s Gospel during Mass, in Samaria, a region in which the hostility towards Jesus and other pilgrims to Jerusalem would be particularly acute. Hence, Jesus’ reference to official religious figures is especially critical: the wounded individual may be dead, therefore to approach his corpse rendered anyone who approached it ritually impure and therefore excluded from public worship and community activities. The person who shows human, and religious,
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of a town refuse them hospitality, a sacred duty in the culture of the time and place, “it will not go as hard with Sodom as with that town.” The sin of Sodom to which Jesus refers was the breach of the law of hospitality, which is the reason why the disciples should leave, shaking off the very dust of the place as a sign to those who failed to live up to their obligations to the stranger and traveller. TODAY’S READINGS Is 66:10-14; Ps 65; Gal 6:14-18; Lk 10:1-12. 17-20
compassion for the injured person, whom the others may not realise to be still alive, is one of the most despised groups in cultural Jewish thought at the time. Jesus turns the lawyer’s question back on him. His questioner asks, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus is posing the question the opposite way round: “Whose neighbour are you?” TODAY’S READINGS Deut 30:10-14; Ps 68; Col 1:15-20; Lk 10:25-37
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