Luke 10: 30-37
Robert Clements an authentic writer in teenager magazine narrated an incident like this: a long years ago an armoured truck toppled over on an overpass and rained more than half a million dollars on to the street below. Police said that the witnesses reported seeing the rush-hour commuters loading money into their cars without attending to the two bleeding truck workers. And then the policemen rushed to the street and pleaded with residents to return money back and received nothing but laughter until a woman and a boy came in and returned what they picked up. When she is asked she said, “ I want to be an example to my child”. And then when the boy was asked he said, “it is right thing for me to do this”. In the world that seemed to think alike, two people had a different idea of life. They lived differently. Though what they did is ordinary they are known as different persons in this world.
The gospel just read speaks about a man who had a different idea of life. Among the three, the Samaritan stood different in his approach to life, that is human dignity is divine. And the priest and the levy followed the law as everyone of the pharisaic Jewish society and they stood blameless in their idea of life. They lived as the majority of the people of their time. But the Samaritan experienced the divinity in serving the needy. And he showed everyone the different way of life that did not match with thought pattern of the people of his world.
Here if we closely look at ourselves we are not far from the world of pharisaic Jews in our approach to life. We go along with the idea that this world gives us and that is individualistic and indifferent to the needs of other human beings. But we, the Christians and Samaritans of the gospel are called to be different in the world. That difference is in our attitude towards life. Our whole attitude even in our small dealings should reflect our idea of life that is human dignity is divine. We need to make this different idea of life as our way of life that we can transform the world. it is only possible when we realize that human dignity is divine.
Scott peck begins his book the different drummer with this narration. An abbot of dying community of monks goes into the woods to seek the advice of a neighboring town’s rabbi hoping that rabbi could give him some pearls of wisdom. In his stay with the rabbi he said nothing. On his return the rabbi told the monk, “ Messiah is one among you”. The monk came with a heavy heart because he could not understand the treasure hidden in those words. He shared with the community that the rabbi did not give any advice on his stay. And he added that he uttered a few words on my return and I could not understand the meaning of it that is, messiah is one among you. That very sentence touched the core of all the monks. They realized that every one was potential messiah and anyone could turn to be messiah. Thus they gave a new start to their lives by treating one another with a lot of respect and love. The community lived the different way of life that human dignity is divine. And the rays of love and compassion in the community spread to all the places. people start joining the community. That community reflected Christ.
The different idea of life that Jesus showed us and that we are to live is, messiah is among us that is human dignity is divine. Let us try to live this way of life that is different from the world we live in. And let us ask God’s grace to live with the idea of life that is human dignity is divine.
