the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all
your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus replied, “What a good answer!
Do this and you shall live.” The man wanted= to keep up appearances, so he replied, “Who
is my neighbor?” Jesus then said, “There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell
into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
It happened that a priest was going along that road and saw the man, but passed by
on the other side. Likewise a Levite saw the man and passed by on the other side. But
a Samaritan, too, was going that way, and when he came upon the man, he was moved
with compassion. He went over to him and treated his wounds with oil and wine and
wrapped them with bandages. Then he put him on his own mount and brought him to
an inn where he took care of him. (...)

Reflection:

Nowadays, we live in a world knitted together
by superior technology. Thus in this post technological age,
our faith, and our community living experiences train us to
look beyond borders and see all people as our neighbors.
We intuitively know that our well-being is hinged on
the well-being of others. We probably do not ask “Who
is my neighbor” nowadays because we have learned to
think globally. But there are times when we can relate
to the man who asks Jesus this question. We know
the correct answer to the question, but don’t actually
know who our neighbors are. Jesus provides us with
a measurement. It is not dependent on proximity
whether relational or geographical. Our neighbor
is the one who needs most of our help. This does
away with a lot of artificial barriers we build around our
relationship. From now on, we cannot look at the misery
and suffering of others in the same way as before.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2021