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Jesus was always teaching, wasn't He? And like any good teacher, He was always being questioned.
Even as a child, as a twelve-year-old in the Temple, Jesus answers the questions of the wise. Luke tells us that "all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers" [Lk 2:47]. And the questions continued right up to that final barrage, as He stood before Pilate facing death. Yes, even Pilate, the upper-class Roman who no doubt considered the Jews little more than rabble, even Pilate sought answers from Jesus, this strange teacher whom he must judge:
"Are you the King of the Jews?" [Jn 18:33]
"Where are you from?" [Jn 19:9]
"Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?" [Jn 19:10]
"What is truth?" [Jn 18:38]
Pilate, of course, instead of sneering that final question, should have asked, "Who is truth?", because he was in the presence of "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" [Jn 14:6].
Almost everyone Jesus met asked Him questions, as if they all knew He had the answers, as if they all sensed He was far more than just another teacher or holy man...that He was Other.
What did the centurion realize as he stood at the foot of the Cross?
"Truly, this was the Son of God" [Mt 27:54].
In today's passage from Luke, Jesus is again asked a question:
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" [Lk 10:25]
Jesus didn't need to invent an answer, for the answer was already there in the Revealed Word of God. And so the Incarnate Word of God answered with a question of His own: "What is written in the Law?" [Lk 10:26]
The scholar responded correctly, didn't he? He simply went to Scripture:
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself" [Lk 10:27].
You see, it's not necessary to be a scholar to know God and what He expects of us. Indeed, just moments before Jesus had prayed to the Father:
"I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike" [Lk 10:21].
But unlike the childlike, the scholar, hoping not so much to learn as to justify himself, asks Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" [Lk 10:29] With that Jesus offers us a gift, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a parable both scholar and childlike can understand:
"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho..." [Lk 10:30-37]
But what exactly did the Samaritan do, this man despised by the Jews and thought to be outside the Law? Quite simply, he listened to God's Word. He obeyed the Law. At the very least, he listened to his conscience, a well-formed conscience, and acted righteously. This set him on the path to eternal life.
Remember that original question? "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" [Lk 10:25]
But two others encountered the wounded man on the road, didn't they? A priest and a Levite. Two men so wrapped up in the minutia of the law, so afraid of becoming unclean by touching the wounded man that they passed by with hardly a glance.
Only the Samaritan stopped, only he did anything to help. Only he looked beyond the letter to the spirit of the Law. How did Jesus put it? "Many are called but few are chosen" [Mt 22:14].
And so today, let's reflect on our own lives.
Who are the wounded you and I encounter? The physically wounded? The mentally wounded? The spiritually wounded? Do we even recognize them amidst the busyness of our lives? Or maybe we see them, but turn away, preferring not to be bothered. Anyway, someone else will take care of them. Is that how we'll inherit eternal life?
As Christians we should know better. To inherit eternal life, we must come to know God, to know Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But this knowing of God is knowledge of Love. As John reminds us: to know the Truth that is God is to know God, who "is Love" [1 Jn. 4:16].
It always comes back to Love, doesn't it?
Just as Jesus rebuked the scholars, the "wise and the learned", so St. Paul in our first reading rebukes the Galatians for forgetting that the Gospel fulfills the Law, that the Gospel calls us to love.
Thank God we need not be scholars. We need only be childlike to love. We need only be childlike to inherit eternal life.
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