15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This weekend is already July 10th and the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Time races on. The gospel this weekend is that of the Good Samaritan, one that we know by heart and tend to take for granted. But one Scripture scholar, Amy Jill Levine in her book SHORT STORIES BY JESUS, tries to get us to see it with new eyes. It is not just a call to help someone in need but something else as well. To drive her point home, she puts it in contemporary terms and sets it in that part of Israel where there is such conflict between the government of Israel and the Palestinians.
In her update an Israeli Jew is walking from Jerusalem to Jericho when he or she is attacked, beaten, robbed, and thrown into a ditch. Two people who should have stopped to help do not. One is a Jewish medic from the Israel defense force; the second is a member of a Christian missionary community. The third person, who has compassion and responds lavishly is a Palestinian Muslim who is a member of Hamas, whose mission is to destroy Israel. So she calls it “the parable of the good Hamas member.” Her point is to beware of our tendency to label all enemies with the same brush. Concretely, can we recognize that all Syrian refugees are not terrorists. The vast majority are people who have lost everything and proverbially “are thrown in a ditch.” Can we be people who respond to their plight?