Do the Next Right Thing - Luke 10:25-37

This gospel is, for many of us, maybe the one that we can remember for as long as we’ve been going to church. Why is that? Maybe because its message is so simple yet so profound that a young child can hear it, understand it, and be guided by the lesson it delivers.
                             
"Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, and you will live." This is a lesson that is within everyone's reach to live out. Even secularists, those that leave out the God part, know that a society works better if we treat each other like we like to be treated.  We’ve seen signs in some neighborhoods that say, “Drive as if it’s your kids who live here.” The golden rule is still held to the standard to this day.
 
The overall lesson in this gospel summarizes all gospels, the entire meaning of life, and it does so with such eloquent simplicity!  That is:
…A worthy life is a simple life. Just do the next right thing. What’s that expression – simplicity is complexity resolved?  I think that applies here.
 
But the thing is, we’re rarely satisfied with simplicity. We love complexity. We’re not sure why, but we’re drawn to it just the same. We’re just like the scholar in the Gospel passage. We pester God for clarifications, "Yes, but who actually is my neighbor?" we ask. Jesus didn't lose patience with the questioning scholar, and he doesn't lose patience with us.
 
Jesus gives us the Good Samaritan parable to explain what he means. And he has generously given us further explanations – through the guidance of the Church and through the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.
 
But we still complicate our lives; we still find it hard to learn the lesson. It's almost as if part of us doesn't really want to learn it. Why is that?  What holds us back from making Christ's standard our own?
 
We know that by our nature, we are sinful creatures. We all have some level of selfishness, which is tough to overcome. We aspire to live the golden rule and be our authentic selves, but our sinful nature creates comfortable shadowy areas in our lives. These may be material things or other little vices that (truth be told) we consider too important to surrender.
 
When we get too used to those shadowy areas, the bright light of Christ's truth kinda hurts our eyes. But if we open ourselves up to today’s message, its simplicity will ring true. We will hear the clear, unmistakable message of the Good Samaritan, and understand it perfectly. We then hear Jesus ask us to live this parable as he says to us, "Go and do likewise."
 
“Go and do likewise” doesn’t mean that we have to do something quite as dramatic as we see with the Samaritan, like the story I saw on Facebook where a couple of prison inmates in Texas busted out of their jail cell to help save their corrections officer who was having a heart attack right outside their cell. Though we’re entertained by the histrionics of such stories, our call is much simpler - just do the next right thing.
 
This is exactly what Moses was speaking about to the people in the First Reading. The secret to happiness and fulfillment, as he describes, is not about climbing a mountain or seeking knowledge from a far away place in the sky or across the sea. A worthy life is easily within our reach. Don’t make it harder or more complicated than it really is!
 
The really exciting part of life, life’s lasting satisfaction, doesn't come from some endless glorious search, it comes from the depth of our hearts.
 
How do we live a more Good-Samaritan-like life? Well, I think we can begin by seeing the execution of all of our daily duties in terms of being Good Samaritan-like deeds.
 
The reason many of us dislike work (the emoji on Monday is a frown and the one for Friday is a smiley face) is that we view work as gaining rather than giving. Whether it's our vocational work, our volunteer work, or work around the house, the purpose of work, when we really boil it all down, is generosity. We acknowledge the gifts we have been given to us by God by using them to contribute to fulfill God’s plan for ourselves, our community, and our world.
 
Christian writer, Matthew Kelly makes the point that real joy in life comes from a generous spirit, living a life of “self-donation”. Work is generosity, even if we are paid for it. The work we do is giving, not gaining. The work we do is to benefit others. And if our work reflects this disposition, even if we're on an assembly line creating some widget, we’ll begin to see it as a Good-Samaritan-like act, giving to the world.
 
There’s a quote that I hang onto that was attributed to Martin Luther that says: “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays, not because she sings Christian hymns as she sweeps, but because God loves clean floors!
 
The Christian shoemaker does his duty, not by putting little crosses on his shoes, but by making good shoes because God is interested in good craftsmanship.
 
Our everyday toils can similarly be interpreted as being Good Samaritan like:
 

• The mom and dad running a household are being a Good Samaritans for the children under their care.
• So is every laborer or professional who dedicates 8 or 10 hours every day to providing some kind of service for other people who need it.
• Coming home from a hard day’s work, pulling into the driveway and discovering that, because of all the rain, the grass needs cut again! 
• The young person who is faithful to his or her chores, and other activities, is forming their character and getting ready to go out into the world to serve their neighbors. All are Good-Samaritan-like deeds.

 
In Philipians it says , "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."
 
When we’re having one of those days when we’re caught up in a fog, and we’re just trying to get through the day, one foot in front of the other, the thing we ought to ask is what's the next right thing? If we ask ourselves that question with a generosity of heart, God will bless us.
 
Maybe before our day begins, we should take a few moments to ask God to guide us through the day. Here’s a simple prayer we might try: “ Guide my hands, Lord, to work as you would work. Guide my lips, Lord, to say what you would say. Guide my heart, Lord, to do what you would do.”  Now, you might consider this a pretty boring prayer, but somehow I don’t think God would be bored by it.
 
If we pray that prayer, we’ll no doubt be led to do the next right thing - love our neighbors, turn the other cheek when people come against us, be honest when it’s not easy to be honest, to bless those who curse us, to care for those who are in need, and to defend the defenseless.
 
So, our prayer for today is that we’ll begin to hear those little whisperings of the Holy Spirit, guiding our decisions. Those decisions will then be born out of our simple and unwavering desire to serve others first.
 
We don’t have to do dramatic, heroic deeds to “go and do likewise”, but we simply need to become committed to live the discipline of doing the next right thing. When we do, we become our authentic selves, becoming formed as Christ’s disciples, with an enlivened passion for dealing with others, and we’ll find ourselves with a new sense of joy, satisfaction and fulfillment!