The Neighbor God Gives Us
A road is an ordinary thing.
Most of the time, its purpose is simply to get us somewhere else. We measure it in miles and minutes. We notice the traffic, the weather, perhaps the sunrise, but mostly we are thinking about the place at the other end.
Then someone appears beside the road.
Suddenly the road is no longer merely the space between where we are and where we intend to be. It has become the place where God has put another human being in our path.
That is the road Christ gives us this morning.
Opening Verse
V. Lord, open my lips.
R. And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Alleluia.
Invitatory
Come, let us adore the Lord, for he is our God.
Psalm 94 (95)
Come let us praise the Lord with joy:
let us joyfully sing to God our saviour.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving;
and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great king above all gods.
For in his hand are all the ends of the earth:
and the heights of the mountains are his.
For the sea is his, and he made it:
and his hands formed the dry land.
Come let us adore and fall down:
and weep before the Lord that made us.
For he is the Lord our God:
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts:
As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness:
where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works.
Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said:
These always err in heart.
And these men have not known my ways:
so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Come, let us adore the Lord, for he is our God.
Psalmody
Psalm 83 (84)
Antiphon: Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord.
How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.
For the sparrow hath found herself a house,
and the turtle a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones:
Thy altars, O Lord of hosts,
my king and my God.
Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord:
they shall praise thee for ever and ever.
Blessed is the man whose help is from thee:
in his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps,
In the vale of tears, in the place which he hath set.
For the lawgiver shall give a blessing,
they shall go from virtue to virtue:
the God of gods shall be seen in Sion.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer:
give ear, O God of Jacob.
Behold, O God our protector:
and look on the face of thy Christ.
For better is one day in thy courts above thousands.
I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God,
rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners.
For God loveth mercy and truth:
the Lord will give grace and glory.
He will not deprive of good things
them that walk in innocence.
O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord.
Canticle — Isaiah 2:2–5
Antiphon: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.
And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many people shall go, and say:
Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths:
For the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge the Gentiles, and rebuke many people:
And they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles:
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war.
O house of Jacob, come ye,
and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.
Psalm 95 (96)
Antiphon: Sing to the Lord and bless his name.
Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle:
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing ye to the Lord and bless his name:
show forth his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the Gentiles:
his wonders among all people.
For the Lord is great, and exceedingly to be praised:
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils:
but the Lord made the heavens.
Praise and beauty are before him:
holiness and majesty in his sanctuary.
Bring ye to the Lord, O ye kindreds of the Gentiles,
bring ye to the Lord glory and honour:
Bring to the Lord glory unto his name.
Bring up sacrifices, and come into his courts:
Adore ye the Lord in his holy court.
Let all the earth be moved at his presence.
Say ye among the Gentiles, the Lord hath reigned.
For he hath corrected the world, which shall not be moved:
he will judge the people with justice.
Let the heavens rejoice, and the earth be glad,
let the sea be moved, and the fulness thereof:
The fields and all things that are in them shall be joyful.
Then shall all the trees of the woods rejoice
Before the face of the Lord, because he cometh:
because he cometh to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with justice,
and the people with his truth.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: Sing to the Lord and bless his name.
Short Reading
James 2:12–13
So speak ye, and so do, as being to be judged by the law of liberty.
For judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy. And mercy exalteth itself above judgment.
Short Responsory
V. Blessed be the Lord our God, blessed from age to age.
R. Blessed be the Lord our God, blessed from age to age.
V. His wonderful works are beyond compare.
R. Blessed from age to age.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
R. Blessed be the Lord our God, blessed from age to age.
Gospel of the Day
Luke 10:25–37
At that time, behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting him, and saying:
Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?
But he said to him: What is written in the law? how readest thou?
He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.
And he said to him: Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
But he willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: And who is my neighbour?
And Jesus answering, said:
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead.
And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by.
In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by.
But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion.
And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee.
Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the robbers?
But he said: He that shewed mercy to him.
And Jesus said to him:
Go, and do thou in like manner.
Benedictus
Antiphon: Blessed be the Lord our God.
Canticle of Zachary — Luke 1:68–79
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel;
because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people:
And hath raised up an horn of salvation to us,
in the house of David his servant:
As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets,
who are from the beginning:
Salvation from our enemies,
and from the hand of all that hate us:
To perform mercy to our fathers,
and to remember his holy testament,
The oath, which he swore to Abraham our father,
that he would grant to us,
That being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
we may serve him without fear,
In holiness and justice before him,
all our days.
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest:
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways:
To give knowledge of salvation to his people,
unto the remission of their sins:
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God,
in which the Orient from on high hath visited us:
To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death:
to direct our feet into the way of peace.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: Blessed be the Lord our God.
Intercessions
Christ calls us not merely to speak of love, but to become neighbors to those whom he places before us. Let us pray:
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For the Church and her shepherds, that the Gospel may be proclaimed faithfully and made visible in works of mercy,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For our country, our towns, and our neighborhoods, especially wherever suspicion, loneliness, violence, or division have made strangers of neighbors,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For all who begin another week of work, study, service, or responsibility, that we may recognize our daily labor as a place in which charity can become concrete,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For our homes and families, that we may show patience and kindness most especially to those whose needs are so familiar that we are tempted not to notice them,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For the sick, the injured, the lonely, the poor, the displaced, and all who find themselves abandoned beside the roads of this world,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For those who care for others—physicians and nurses, priests and religious, missionaries and caregivers, first responders and ordinary neighbors—give them strength in their works of mercy,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For all who have died, especially those who died alone or forgotten by the world, that they may be welcomed into the mercy of God,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
For ourselves, that we may notice the person whom Providence places in our path today and have the generosity to stop,
Lord, make us instruments of thy mercy.
Our Father
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
Concluding Prayer
O God, whose mercy has sought us when we were wounded by sin, give us eyes to see those whom thou hast placed before us.
Free us from the love that remains only in words. Make us generous with our time, patient in our homes, faithful in our work, attentive to the lonely, and ready to serve those whose needs interrupt our plans.
May the mercy we have received from thee become mercy freely given to others.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Blessing
May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
The Paradox of the Day
The neighbor we did not choose may be the very person God has chosen for us to love.
Chesterton for the Morning
G. K. Chesterton wrote:
“We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour.”
— G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, “On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family”
A Chestertonian Meditation
There is something wonderfully presumptuous about a road.
A road assumes that we know where we are going.
We climb into the car on Monday morning with coffee in the cup holder, perhaps a list in our pocket and an appointment on the calendar, and the road politely agrees to carry us toward the destination we have selected. Roads are useful precisely because they do not normally argue with us.
Then something happens beside one.
A tire goes flat. A deer appears. A tree limb falls. Someone is standing beside a stalled car. An ambulance is coming the other way.
And suddenly the road is no longer about our destination.
It is about what is directly in front of us.
The lawyer in today’s Gospel also knows where he is going. He asks Jesus one of the greatest questions a man can ask: what must I do to possess eternal life?
Jesus asks what the law says.
The lawyer knows the answer.
Love God. Love your neighbor.
One might think the conversation could end there.
Instead comes the wonderfully human sentence: “And who is my neighbour?”
Saint Luke adds the uncomfortable explanation that the man asks this because he wishes to justify himself.
In other words, he would like a specification.
There is something almost reassuring about a specification. Tell me precisely where my obligation begins and ends. Define “neighbor.” Give me the boundary conditions. Surely there must be somebody whom I am not required to love.
Jesus responds with a road.
A man is traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Robbers attack him, strip him, wound him, and leave him half dead.
Then the road begins producing people.
First a priest.
He sees the man and passes by.
Then a Levite.
He sees the man and passes by.
Then comes the person whom Christ’s audience would least expect to become the hero: a Samaritan.
He sees the same man.
But he stops.
That tiny difference changes the entire story.
Chesterton understood something peculiar about neighbors. Friends, after all, are largely selected. We tend to choose people whose company we enjoy. Even enemies have a certain element of selection about them; we usually acquire them through disputes in which we have participated.
But the neighbor is different.
God makes him.
That is Chesterton’s startling point.
The neighbor is simply the human being who happens to be there.
This is much less romantic than loving humanity.
Humanity is remarkably easy to love at a distance. Humanity never borrows your tools and forgets to return them. Humanity does not play loud music next door. Humanity does not call when dinner is ready. Humanity does not need a ride to the doctor on the morning when you had planned to get something else done.
Actual human beings are far more troublesome.
And therefore far more interesting.
Christianity is stubbornly interested in actual human beings.
The Good Samaritan does not establish a foundation for wounded travelers. He does not issue a statement condemning highway robbery. He does not post a thoughtful essay about the social conditions on the Jerusalem-to-Jericho road.
He kneels down.
There is oil.
There is wine.
There are bandages.
There is an animal that must now carry two men instead of one.
There is an innkeeper who must be paid.
There is even a promise to settle the remaining bill later.
Mercy has suddenly acquired a budget.
This is perhaps one of the strangest things about Christianity. Its greatest truths continually become embarrassingly practical.
We say that God is love, and sooner or later that means washing somebody’s dishes.
We say that every person possesses dignity, and sooner or later that means listening to someone who takes too long to tell a story.
We say that we love our family, and sooner or later that means getting up when we would rather remain seated.
We say that we care about the poor, and sooner or later there is an actual poor person.
The abstraction becomes flesh.
That should not surprise Christians.
Our entire religion begins with the Word becoming flesh.
God did not save humanity by remaining an idea.
He entered a particular town, had a particular mother, worked with particular hands, ate at particular tables, touched particular sick people, and died on a particular cross outside a particular city.
The infinite came astonishingly close.
So must mercy.
There is another delightful reversal in Christ’s story.
The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbour?”
At the end Jesus does not give him a definition.
He asks which traveler became neighbor to the wounded man.
The question has changed.
We begin by asking which people fall inside the circle of our responsibility.
Christ asks whether we are willing to step inside theirs.
That is a much more dangerous question.
It means the interruptions in an ordinary day may not always be interruptions.
Some certainly are. Christianity does not require us to imagine that every inconvenience is a divine telegram. There is work to be done, promises to keep, families to support, and duties that themselves are acts of charity.
But sometimes there is a person beside the road.
And perhaps the great spiritual danger is not that we will deliberately refuse some magnificent opportunity for heroic virtue.
Perhaps it is that we simply will not notice.
The priest saw.
The Levite saw.
The Samaritan saw.
Only one allowed what he saw to change what he was doing.
That is where today’s short reading becomes wonderfully severe: mercy triumphs over judgment.
Judgment can remain comfortably in the head.
Mercy eventually has to move the feet.
It crosses the road.
It bends down.
It gets its hands dirty.
It spends something.
It loses some time.
It becomes inconvenient.
And this morning, somewhere beyond the window, there is already a road waiting for us.
Most of us will not find a wounded traveler beside it.
Our road may lead into a workshop, office, classroom, kitchen, hospital room, grocery store, telephone conversation, or family breakfast.
But someone will be there.
Perhaps it will be someone we dearly love.
Perhaps someone we find difficult.
Perhaps someone whose name we do not yet know.
We need not go searching for humanity.
God has an extraordinary habit of delivering it locally.
And that may be the great joke hidden inside the lawyer’s question.
“Who is my neighbor?”
Look around.
God has already answered.
For the Day Ahead
Do not begin the day looking for some enormous act of charity.
Look instead for the person God has already placed along your road.
Notice.
Stop.
Go near.
Show mercy.
And when the road changes because someone needs you, remember that perhaps you have not been delayed from today’s destination at all.
Perhaps you have arrived at it.
Lord Jesus Christ, make us neighbors to those thou hast placed in our path. Amen.
Chesterton Radio