25 Behold, a lawyer, in order to trap Jesus, asks him this question: "Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 Jesus replies, "What does the Bible say about this?" 27 The lawyer replies, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." 28 Then Jesus said to him: "You have the right answer. Do this, and you will have life." 29 But the lawyer wanted to explain the reason for his question: "Who is a neighbor?"

30 Then Jesus told him this parable: "One day, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. But he fell into the midst of bandits who stripped him and beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 By chance, a priest was coming down from Jerusalem by the same road and, seeing him, passed by. 32 In the same way, a Levite coming on the same road saw him and passed by as well. 33 Finally, a Samaritan on a journey came alongside him and, seeing him, was moved with compassion. 34 He bent over him, bandaged his wounds, poured oil and wine over him, then, after putting him on his mount, brought him to the inn and took care of him. 35 Then, the next day, taking out of his purse the equivalent of two days' wages, he gave the money to the innkeeper with the recommendation: "Take good care of him, and if you have to spend more, I'll pay you back when I come back."

36 Then Jesus said to the lawyer, "Which of the three do you think was the neighbor of the man who fell into the hands of the bandits?" 37 The lawyer replied, "The one who showed him compassion." Jesus said to him: "Go and do likewise".

What rule should we follow in life?

A face in the news these days caught my attention, that of an emaciated little girl from Gaza, clearly undernourished: my heart was crushed; why was she born there, and I was born here? Then, the next day, I was seized by a photo of a Gazan mother hugging desperately her dead child, wrapped in a white sheet. I imagined what she must have felt in front of the flesh of her own flesh, an innocent being crushed by a conflict for which he had no part. All this reminded me of a scene that stuck in my mind at the start of the war in Ukraine, where three bodies lie on the ground next to their bicycles: a man, his wife and their young son; they were trying to flee the battlefield, simply to preserve their lives, and were shot uselessly by Russian soldiers. There are so many things that twist our insides, so painful to bear, that some days we'd like to protect ourselves by cutting ourselves off from the news.

These images come to me as I meditate on today's gospel by the evangelist Luke. It's a story that's well known among Christians, especially the parable of the Good Samaritan. Let's take the time to read it again carefully.

The story has two parts: first, a dialogue between Jesus and a lawyer, and then a parable. Luke uses the first part as a long introduction to the parable, beginning with a simple question from the lawyer: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" This is the equivalent of the traditional question: "What must I do to be saved?" This question basically boils down to this other question: "What is it that pleases this mystery at the source of this world and that we call God, and therefore allows us to resemble Him and opens the door to cohabitation with Him".

What answer does Luke put into Jesus' mouth? In fact, Luke has a surprise in store for us. He's familiar with the Gospel according to Mark, where Jesus, when asked by a lawyer about the most important law or commandment, first quotes the book of Deuteronomy (6:5): "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your strength", and then adds a verse from the book of Leviticus (19:18): "You shall love your neighbor as yourself". What does this answer mean in a Jewish context? First of all, this response from Mark's Jesus is revolutionary in that it glues together two different passages of Scripture and puts them on the same footing as the main commandment that sums up all the laws. But the fact remains that this two-faced commandment is still very Jewish. What does it mean for a Jew to love God? It's not an invitation to a mystical experience. The Book of Deuteronomy is very clear on its meaning: to put into practice the laws and customs of Jewish tradition, which go back to Moses. And what does it mean to love your neighbor? Here again, the Book of Leviticus is very clear: do not defraud your fellow countryman, do not lie to him, do not exploit him, do not steal from him, do not pass unjust judgment, do not hate him, do not take revenge; this is love for his fellow Jews. So what does Luke do? He takes the very words from Mark's Jesus, but puts them instead into the mouth of the lawyer. Remember: in Luke Jesus answers the lawyer with a question: what does the Bible say? So why did Luke make this change?

The answer lies in the parable. The parable begins with the question: "Who is my neighbor?" Note that in Greek this word translated into English as "neighbor" is an adverb: "near to", and applies to both people and objects, and that in Hebrew the term rēaʿ used by the book of Leviticus designates a friend, a companion, an intimate. We know the events of the parable. On the lonely, semi-desert road down from Jerusalem to Jericho, a man, probably a Jew, is attacked by bandits who leave him half-dead. Two men, a temple priest and then a Levite, a kind of lower clergyman responsible for various temple services, pass along the same road and walk away from the half-dead man without intervening. Why not? Out of insensitivity? The story doesn't say, but a Jew would know that the Book of Leviticus states that whoever in the field stumbles on a man killed by the sword, or on a dead man, or on human bones, or on a grave, is impure for seven days, and therefore ineligible to officiate at the temple; so why would the priest and the Levite have taken this risk? It was a Samaritan, an inhabitant of Samaria, north of Judea, hated by the Jewish community and considered by them to be a heretic, who stopped to care for the half-dead Jew.

Let's look at the Samaritan's motivation for intervening. Our Bibles translate it as follows: "He was moved with compassion". In fact, the Greek word translates literally: "His bowels were troubled". It's a reference to the common experience of feeling one's belly being pierced by a painful scene. The same verb is used by Luke to describe Jesus' reaction when he sees the widow of Nain bringing her only son to the ground (Lk 7:13), or to describe the father's reaction when he sees the pitiful state of his prodigal son (Lk 15:20). This is the Samaritan's motivation for caring for the half-dead Jew, giving him his time and money to heal.

That's the irony in this whole Gospel passage, and probably why Luke put the two references to Scripture in the mouth of the lawyer rather than in that of Jesus at the very beginning. For this parable goes far beyond what is contained in the book of Deuteronomy on love of God and in the book of Leviticus on love of neighbor. Indeed, while love of God would imply respect for laws and customs in the Jewish world, it is precisely this respect for laws and customs that prevents the priest and Levite from intervening. Whereas in the Jewish world, love of neighbor is first and foremost respect for one's fellow countrymen, the parable describes love for a stranger. What's more, the adverb "near to" becomes a dynamic term that designates any being to whom we agree to be close. From then on, the true compass of the human being is not to be found in laws or rules, but in a feeling, that of compassion.

I find it vital to read this parable in the light of the events we are living through today. Because, with the proliferation of news reports featuring scenes of horror and unacceptable behavior, we grow weary of being "caught in the gut", especially when we feel powerless to intervene; as with old wounds, we become impervious. I need only think of the reactions to the gross simplifications, lies, abuse of power and cruelty of the American president in the year 2025: what was unacceptable yesterday has become a new normal. How did we come to propose compassion as unacceptable? In an interview, billionaire Elon Musk¹ asserted: "Empathy is suicidal for our civilization"; because empathy for individuals would be too costly for the collective. What if it were the other way around, if a lack of empathy and compassion were suicidal for humanity? Yes, a society can continue to exist and grow richer, but it will never find the life that only love and self-giving can provide.

So it's vital to keep the flame of compassion burning, and to accept "having our bowels troubled", even if it hurts. I recall the story of a man who suffered from congenital insensitivity to pain, a rare hereditary condition. His body resembled a minefield, ravaged by all kinds of injuries to which he had not reacted, having felt nothing. The same would be true of our society if we allowed the flame of compassion to be extinguished. What's more, we would have killed a part of ourselves, the most precious part, the one that makes us resemble the Mystery at the source of this world.

---

¹ See Elon Musk's interview with Joe Rogan, published on CNN

 

-André Gilbert, Gatineau, June 2025