Monday of Week 27 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
Galatians 1:6-12 | Psalm 110:1-2,7-10 | Luke 10:25-37
I watched a rather profound movie on the flight home yesterday from my UK Catholic tour titled Eye in the Sky. Briefly, it paints a plausible picture of all the political and military workings behind initiating and executing a drone strike against terrorist targets in rural Kenya. In brief, a innocent little girl dies selling homemade bread at a makeshift stall near the strike zone, and no one directly involved is left emotionally untouched afterwards.
I was surprised to find a parallel between the characters in that movie and today’s Gospel, the oh-so-familiar Parable of the Good Samaritan. All the political and military characters involved in prosecuting the drone strike were depicted as calculating but not cold, honestly trying to do the right thing when faced with live footage of suicide bombers gearing up to wreak havoc in unknown locations, constantly finding ways to balance the immediate threat of the evildoers with the collateral damage of the strike.
The trouble was they deliberately kept their mental distance from the problem at hand, choosing to talk in terms of political capital and strategy. As one adviser put it: “If Al-Shabab kill 80 people we win the propaganda war. If we kill one they do.”
Similarly, we’re so used to thinking of the Levite and the priest in the parable as uncaring people, and it’s clearly stated that both veered off their intended path to avoid coming close to the victim, but nothing in the Gospel suggests they didn’t at least say a prayer for the unfortunate victim in passing. I’m sure we all know folks like that, preferring not to get personally involved but ever-willing to pray for the unfortunate and perhaps make a donation or two. We may even be like that ourselves.
In contrast, the Samaritan literally got his hands dirty, binding and anointing the victim’s wounds, and going the extra mile to ensure the victim got every chance at full recovery, even though he was considered a pariah. No one would’ve batted an eyelid if he’d passed on the other side too, but he chose otherwise.
One of the minor characters in Eye in the Sky was a local intelligence agent who ran the camera drones that showed the terrorists’ activities inside their safehouse. It turned out that he was a known government sympathizer to the rebels who were guarding the terrorists, but he was also moved to remove the little girl from the blast zone by any means necessary. He first tried to buy all her bread himself so that she could go home early, but that blew his cover and he barely escaped the chasing rebels. Undaunted, he then bribed a young boy to do the same, which eventually worked. His anguish, when he found out that she died anyway because he was just a little too late, was palpable.
I think we sometimes fail to act because we fear the potential for making matters worse, or being emotionally involved, or being sucked into a long-term support relationship. Let us take our first steps today toward drawing nearer to others in need and helping them through direct action, secure in the hope that God will help us deal with our fears and guide our actions for the better.
Father, may we do Your will on earth, as it is in heaven. Amen.