Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning. Today we celebrate the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
The opening Prayer O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray so that they may return to the right path. Give all who for the faith they profess, are accounted Christians, the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ, to strive after all that does it honor to our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A reading from the Old Testament the book of Deuteronomy 30:14 Moses said to the people, if only you would heed the voice of the LORD your God, and keep his commandments and statutes that are written in the book of the law when you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. For this command is what I enjoin on you today. It’s not too mysterious or remote for you.
It is not up in the sky that you should say, who will go up in the sky and get it for us? Or tell us of it that we may carry it out. Nor is it across the sea that you should say, who across the sea to get it for us and tell us of it that we may carry it out? No, it is something very near to you already in your mouths and in your hearts. You have only to carry it out, the word of the Lord. Turn to the Lord in your need and you will live.
A reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Colossians, first chapter 15, 20th verse Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers. All things were created through him, and for him he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all Things he himself might be preeminent for in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.
The word of the Lord. Hallelujah. Verse. Your words, Lord, are spirit and life. You have the words of everlasting life. The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St.
Luke 10:25, 37. There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? He said in reply, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. You reply to him, you’ve answered correctly.
Do this and you will live. Because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, a man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise, a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by to the opposite side.
But a Samaritan traveled who came by him, was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instructions, take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I will repay you on my way back. Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robber’s victim?
He answered, the one who treated him with mercy. Jesus said to him, go and do likewise. The Gospel of the Lord Satan Every time we gather as a community, in liturgy, in our tradition, we think about our sins and we we say or sing what you just heard being sung. A plea, a prayer, a request. Lord, have mercy on me. Please, please have mercy on me.
Why would we begin every gathering of Christians celebrating the Eucharist with that particular action? It’s because we sin. It’s part of who we are as human beings. It’s part of the plan. A lot of us have tried to figure out God’s plan and try to make it better, easier. And one of the things I remember used to think about a lot was why didn’t you just take away sin.
I mean, you told us it no longer has power over us, but you didn’t take it away. We still experience it over and over again. It’s taken me a long time to understand what he’s really doing. He’s allowing sin to be there because it has a purpose, it has a reason, it has a role to play. It’ll always be there. And the shadow of sin is that when it is not understood in the way God intends us to participate in a sinful world is, it tends to cause separation, worse, revenge, retaliation, anger.
How could someone do that? To me, it’s interesting. What we hear in the first reading is a description of law, the law that God has given us. Human beings will always come up with laws and rules if they live together. That’s essential. We have to have all kinds of rules and laws.
They govern the way we act, the way we drive, the way we treat each other. Those aren’t the laws of God so much. They’re the laws of human beings created to protect human beings from abuse. And they’re effective and they’re important. And they always go back to something called punishment. Fines, imprisonment, even death.
So the law that God has given is quite different than that. It’s so interesting to me that in the Old Testament we have a story of God’s people so longing for the law that when Jesus, excuse me, when God gave us his laws, 10 Commandments, he made a statement about it, and it’s so fascinating. And he’s talking about, in relationship with God, don’t make any other rules and laws. And for goodness sakes, don’t exclude any of these. How more direct and simple could that be? Yet there developed in the Israelite community over 600 three more rules that had to do with your relationship with God.
And so many of them, when you look back, were kind of laws that would make great sense in terms of hygiene and health and all that. But somehow all rules that are attached to God seem to come across as equally important and valuable. And that’s what’s so dangerous. No, there are 10 three that deal with our relationship with God. One, our relationship with those who’ve given us life. And the other is about how we treat each other, how we deal with each other’s weaknesses and faults.
The most beautiful thing in that first reading is the way God is saying to us, the reason I gave you these laws is because these laws are your nature. This is who you are. This is who I’ve made you to be. These aren’t laws that have to be imposed upon you. If you would sit and think on your own and come up with the rules that you felt were the most advantageous for you. If you were a healthy, whole human being, you’d come up with these very 10.
It’s the way we relate to God and to each other. And it’s not something you have to go figure out or wonder why that law is here, this one or others aren’t. Here’s such a beautiful summary of what it means to be in relationship with other people and to be in that relationship in a way that you are both receiving and giving life. So don’t cheat, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t want what other people have. You connect with divinity. Honor everyone who’s there giving you life.
It’s so beautiful. And yet sin continues to be a major, major problem for human beings, still is, and even perhaps more today, because there’s so much emphasis. It seems to me, at least in our Catholic Church, that the rules and laws that we have to govern people’s relationships with Ezra have gone way beyond these laws that were in the Ten Commandments. But they’re very specific about very specific actions that you can and cannot do. And I know the church is doing that because it sees these things that we do that are dangerous and potentially destructive. And so it says, okay, whenever these things happen, you are seriously sinning.
And then you add to that the notion of sin separating people from one another, from God, from the institution called the church, in the hands of the church. With that kind of situation, what you have is a church who’s demanding that certain actions never happen. And if they do happen, you’re cut out, you’re separated. It’s interesting. In the Old Testament, sin had a very interesting dimension to it when it came to temple worship. If you were a Levite, and then among the Levites, there were priests.
If you were in order for you to be close to God, be involved with anything with the temple, whether it was moving furniture or doing sacrifices or cleaning the floor, whatever, you could not walk in there. If you had any sin in you or on you, and you had to cleanse yourself. Because sin in the Old Testament equated to being somehow polluted yourself sinful. And you couldn’t be in the presence of God with that in. You couldn’t. It would be a blasphemy.
So what do you feel from that? The God who created us can’t stand the fact that we do bad things or we fail. And so, like it’s disgusting. And it’s not only disgusting, but it’s somehow like it makes impossible the kind of relationship God promises with us. Intimacy can’t happen. Like divinity and humanity are radically disengaged, or at least the part of humanity that sins.
It’s completely. They can’t get anywhere near each other. And when you think about that, you understand more importantly the radical experience of Jesus teaching. And it’s summarized by Paul so beautifully in the next reading. He just said, look, this Jesus, he’s everything, he’s all power, he can do anything. He’s the fullness of everything.
He came into the world to do one thing, to reconcile sinners, to bring people who stray away and fail and become, if you want to follow the Old Testament image, polluted evil. He did one action hanging on a cross, stripped naked, blood dripping. And that action, he said that takes care of every single thing in you that God would ever look at and think this is intolerable, disappointing. I can’t be with this person. I mean, it’s so radical. It’s so completely different that.
Wait a minute, you mean God loves sinners? That he prefers them to self righteous people who are following the letter of the law? I mean, how more radical could you be in your teaching? If you came into the world to proclaim that to a group of people, no wonder they killed him. No wonder it was intolerable to think that the business of the temple, which was to purify people so they could get to God, were already purified in a way it simply took away their power. So now we go to the gospel and we see this radical change being challenged and questioned.
So the interesting thing about this story is the man who comes forward is not asking Jesus because he wants to know. He’s wanting to challenge him. Challenge him. So chances are he could have well been a Levite or a priest in the Levite tribe. But whatever it was, he’s going to say, let’s see if we can trip him up. So he basically says, what’s at the heart of this whole thing you’re teaching?
What are you doing? The most fascinating part of this is that the one challenging comes up with the right answer. Yes, I know I’m supposed to love God, love my neighbor, love myself. I know all that. So it’s like, okay, I know I’m supposed to love. But the question who is my neighbor?
Is so set in this man’s intention. I think he wants to say, let me hear if you’re really saying I’m supposed to Love sinners, because that is blasphemy. So who is this person we’re supposed to take care of? Who is my brother that I’m supposed to love? Not a sinner, of course. And Jesus, in his genius, tells the story.
I love that he tells stories. This man, he was robbed of something dear to him. He’s stripped, he’s beaten. Who does that sound like? What these Pharisees, scribes, Levites, priests, wanted to do and did do to Jesus. Took his ministry away from him, they thought, in this world, and humiliated him and beat him, killed him.
So I don’t know whether the man that is listening to the story caught that part. But then he goes on to say, there’s a priest that comes along, a Levite. Now, the reason they walk to the other side of the street is because that was the law. That’s what they had to do. And so he’s talking to these people who are living that life, and he’s saying, see, they just didn’t have any interest in this man who was unattractive and broken. And he said, but a Samaritan, somebody not following the law at all, would come and do exactly what Jesus came to do to every sinner.
Bind his wounds, pour oil. That’s to empower, anoint, and blood, forgiveness, healing. He’s looking at this man saying, you know the problem with the. The institution you guys are following and living? You won’t do that. You don’t care about somebody.
In fact, it probably makes your life pretty easy because all you got to do is sit back and wait for some rich sinner to come and have enough money to get out of the situation of alienation from God. I mean, it’s amazing how simple the message is. You’re here, have compassion and empathy. That’s the law. To everyone who’s in need, who is hungry, who is broken. That’s the work.
You know what? It’s the most natural thing for a human being to do. It’s the most pleasing thing. It just feels so right, that’s all. Do what I’ve called you to do by following the nature that is in you. And it’s a reflection of me, and.
And if you look at my story, you’ll see that’s the life I want you to live. Maybe not as radical or dramatic, but get out of this sickness of sin as separation and get into it as an opportunity to love. Closing prayer. Father, it’s confusing to live in a church that has so many demands and rules that can’t be broken, even when they seem to create great hardships for people. And yet you tell us that the basic fundamental responsibility of the church is to have compassion and understanding on all of us that haven’t reached the fullness that they would like us to have in terms of living the Gospel. So bless the church, bless each of us in the church with compassion for those and never condemn, never separate, never write them off.
And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support.
Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reform Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2024.
