This week we begin our readings by going way back into the second telling of the laws in Deuteronomy. Now if you ever are doing a straight read through of the Bible the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy are likely to be places where you want to skip especially with Deuteronomy being basically a recap of the previous first four books of the Bible. Anyways this week we have a reading that seems to speak directly to an exiled people. Moses says to the people “If you heed the voice of the Lord and keep his commandments they should be written on your heart and soul” This message can also be directed to people of all ages, the Lord is ever in our hearts we just need to be able to find him. We are reminded that God is always with us in our hearts and on our lips. If only more people followed this advice.
We then turn to Paul’s letter to the Colossians in which he makes the point that Christ is the first born of all creation, or as John would write in his Gospel “In the beginning was the Word and Word was with God…through him all things were made…and Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Paul writes that Christ came to make all things new, to reconcile us with the father, through his death on the cross. We have been reconciled to the father through the ultimate gift of love, Christ’s self-sacrifice, we should be reminded of this love and try to show aspects of it in our daily lives.
When we get to the Gospel we pick up a few verses from where we ended last week. The Parable of The Good Samaritan is one of those that we all basically remembers a man was mugged on the road to Jericho and a priest and a Levite pass the beaten man on the road and it is only the Samaritan who actually helped the beaten man.. Now people from Samaria were not typically liked by regular Jews, something having to with a sibling fighting at when Israel split into two kingdoms those in the south (Israel) continually called the north (Samaria) evil. Yet here we have Jesus making a point that the most loathsome person is also our neighbor. Many look to this as a call for civility among different races, cultures and peoples. I hope that we can try and be like the Good Samaritan this week and help out someone.
Related articles
- Christ, the Good Samaritan (fatherjerabek.wordpress.com)
- Why the Samaritan? (friarmusings.wordpress.com)
Deep in the well 
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