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. - Luke 10:27

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?... He said in reply ‘ 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’…. ‘ He said to Jesus:  ‘And who is my neighbor?”  Lk 10: 25-37

I just want to focus on some of the lines above. Let us little by little discuss it briefly. First, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The scholar in the Gospel had a vision to have an eternal life.  This is the problem today, do we, ourselves, wish and dream of having an eternal life? We are so bombarded of the ideals of the earthly world. It tells us that:

1. The number of significant figures we had made in our bank accounts, are more important than God. (which in truth all of this came from God)
2. There are remote controls that in just one click we can have everything we think we need. (there’s  a difference between our wants and what God thinks we need, all we need to do is ask Him)
3. We don’t need to believe in heaven because we can’t touch it nor feel it, etc compared to all the one touch material items that make us happy. (to which true happiness do we want)
4. Our fame and wealth can save us to anything, more than believing that Jesus had already done this for us on the cross.  (we were saved)

And if there is something that the media always forget to flash on our tv screens, it is pointing ourselves to seek for an everlasting life with the Father! In which in truth as the song goes, God is more costly than gold, more precious than silver, can we say?.. Father, all I desire is You. My God, all I desire is You.

Then if we ask… What must I do to inherit eternal life? God promised on the first reading. “ If you would only heed the voice of the Lord, your God and keep his commandments… it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts, you have only to carry it out.” God’s commandments are not confusing unless you want it to be so. The Commandments are self explanatory but we make it complicated for us to be excused of the sins we make. God’s love is simple and unconditional unless you want it to seem complicated and with restrictions. We read the commandments. We had heard God’s love for us. But what’s wrong? Do not hear Jesus rather listen to Him. Believe to what truly it means to be of His love.  Everything is written in the Bible, everything is symbolized by the cross…  it’s already in us, all we need to do is to listen, accept His love and do it into actions.

 “And who is my neighbor?” 

I’m sure all of you are familiar already of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  I would not go back to the story but perhaps I would focus on the 3 characters below.

1.  Priest –one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God (Merriam-Webster, 2012)
2. Levite – a member of the priestly Hebrew tribe of Levi (Merriam-Webster, 2012)
3. Samaritan – a native of Samaria (Merriam-Webster, 2012); who did not belong to the “Chosen People” (365 Days with the Lord, 2013)

Among the three characters, immediately you would think that if someone is in need, the priest and the Levite would be those who would be willing to help, right? But ironically, who did? Then let me ask you, among the three, in your opinion who was the neighbor of the robbed victim?

The priest and the Levite did not do anything bad neither did they do something good. Some say that the sin of omission is greater than the sin of commission. Well, we as members of the ministry are blessed to believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life but it doesn’t end there. Seeing this, we are given the greater responsibility to be the “good Samaritan” in our society. There were many times I for myself had chosen to be the “priest or Levite,” There were times I know what is right but rather shut myself  to avoid conflict:

Situation	Effect	What I did
friends skip class	knowing this will negatively affect their grades	NOTHING
classmates cheat in class	this will not help them in the real world	NOTHING
friends lie to their parents saying they are having group study well in truth they were going out	knowing they are making their parents worry and break the latter’s trust	NOTHING
friends do vices	knowing that it would be bad for their health	NOTHING
friends cheat on their partners	knowing this will hurt the other person	NOTHING
friends do pre marital sex	my knowing that they could be pregnant in no time and give life unprepared	NOTHING

There were many times that I had rather chose to pass by on the opposite side when one is robbed and in need. Sometimes, I think if it is really because I don’t want to argue or have a conflict or because I just want to be in or because I want to be cool, or etc but regardless, it doesn’t give me an excuse of rather taking good care of my neighbor who was in need.

To have eternal life, God did not say anything more than loving. “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” God is love. When we help those in need, we find God’s love. We perhaps had believed that Jesus was our Good Samaritan when we were robbed and in need, haven’t we thought that may be it’s time to pay it forward to our neighbors? In a Christian Radio station it always says: “ God doesn’t have billboards or posters, we are His advertisements.” What does this mean? In our mission of evangelizing God’s love, there is nothing more we will do but through ourselves loving others as well. Being a member of the Team Jesus may not give you a thousand dollars, great cars, houses and fame but Jesus promised He will be with you in Paradise. So keep loving and be a great God’s advertisement, good Samaritan! To end everything, I would just like to repeat what God said: “Go and do likewise.” God bless!  

- Rica Andico