Selfless love
The good
Samaritan Lk 10:25-37
Lord, what must I do
to have eternal life?
Interesting
question, a question which many of us may have asked, maybe with
different words like: “what is sin and what is not?” or “What
makes me good or bad?”, or even: “until when can I carry on doing
this before it becomes a sin?”.
Actually speaking it
is written that the one asking the question was an expert in law, he
knew already the answer but he asked only to test Jesus, to see if he
would make a mistake, but of course Jesus was even more clever than
him.
At least he asked.
Today the problem is that many people do not ask any more, they just
follow their instincts, their feeling or desires withour asking if it
is correct or not. This is the biggest problem today, we do not
bother to see if something is correct or not, if it pleases God or
not, but only if it pleases me. And the consequences are very clear
in front of your eyes, the bad thing happening everywhere, they find
their reason in this attitude.
The expert asked and
the answer was: love, pure love, selfless love. Love, a word which is
so misunderstood today. Our teenager use it continously, they say I
love you but what they mean is I am in love, a love which is selfish
because is meant only to satisfy my desire. This is not real love.
This is a concept which is difficult to understand, even for the
people at the time of Jesus, so he tells them a story. You know very
well the story of the good samaritan, you heard it today. The priest
and the levite had other business to do, they had only their interest
in mind so they did not stop to help the poor fellow who had been
robbed by the thieves.
The samaritan is the
only one who shows real love. He did not know the person, he was not
from the same place or language, he was not even from the same
church, had a different way of understanding religion, a bit like the
difference that there is now between catholic and protestans or even
igesia ni Kristo. But he saw the need of the other and he stopped to
help. He didn’t stop because the other was handsome or rich, and
not even because he was asked for, but he stopped only because the
other was in need and he gave him his time, his help and even paid
for him the hotel. This is what we call selfless love.
What about us? Who
are the people we like to help? Only our frisnds, neighbours? What do
we expect the other do to us? That they repay us? Show gratitude?
Invite us for a meal? All of these are selfish way of loving, they
are not Christian. Anybody in the world would do that. Even inside of
families today there are plenty of problems, people become selfish
and pretend that the wife or the husband or the parents or the
children do just what I like and do not bother to see what I can do
for them. Selfishness is killing our families and our society, is the
foundation of all the problems in the world.
But we are Christian
when we act like Jesus did, he who died on the cross for us and did
not ask us to pay for it.
Let us ask the Lord
to teach us how to love.