OT XIII [C]: I Kgs 19:16b, 19-21; Gal 5:1, 13-18; Lk 9:51-62

Abraham Lincoln was the finest and most spiritual of all the American presidents. During the Civil War, Lincoln was often criticized for not being severe enough on the soldiers of the South.  On one occasion after a battle, a general from the North asked him, “Why didn’t you destroy the enemy when you had the chance? President Lincoln answered with words adapted from today’s Gospel passage: “Do I not destroy my enemy by making him my friend?” That is exactly what Jesus tells   us in today’s Gospel: destroy our enemies by making them our friends. No doubt the feelings of anger and resentment run deep in many hearts today, and we wouldn’t mind if people who hurt us deeply were punished or suffered from bad luck.

This Gospel passage deals with the beginning of Jesus’ journey from the northern towns of Galilee to the southern city of Jerusalem through the land of Samaria. Jesus encountered obstacles from the Samaritans. The Jews and Samaritans shared a common origin in the twelve tribes of Israel. But they hated each other and refused to intermingle or intermarry because of a long-standing historic conflict between the two nations dating back to the eighth century BC, after the Assyrian conquest of the Jews. Even under Assyrian rule, the Samaritans claimed to have maintained proper worship in their land with Mount Gerizim as the center of their religious life.  They argued that the Jews were the ones who had compromised their religious beliefs during their Babylonian exile. The Jews, on the other hand, with the Temple of Jerusalem as the center of their religious life, accused Samaritans of having lost their religious and racial identity through intermarriage with their pagan neighbors.  They even considered Samaritans as heretical and false worshipers of the God of Israel and detested them far more than they detested the pagans. To get to Jerusalem, Galileans had either to go through Samaria or to take a longer, more difficult route east of the Jordan River.  Jesus chose the shortcut through Samaria. But the Samaritans both refused to honor Jesus as a prophet and violated the sacred duties of hospitality. This infuriated the apostles and two of them, James and John, asked Jesus if he wanted them to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume the Samaritans as Elijah had done in his day (II Kings 1:9-12).  Jesus rebuked them, however, because he was not a destroyer but a Savior with a message of mercy and love.

Jesus' choice to go through the villages of Samaria looking for hospitality tells us that he was extending a hand of friendship to enemies. Tolerance: It is a hard lesson, one that took the disciples years to learn. But, the virtue of tolerance, and tolerance for the right cause, needs to be taught in the church. Tolerance is “showing respect for others who are different than us”. It is giving to every other human being every right that we claim for ourselves.

There are two times in particular when tolerance is very important—one is looking past character flaws and bearing with those who irritate us, the other is being respectful and understanding of the differences between people. Tolerance towards others can be difficult. Sometimes it means being kind and respectful to the people who are really irritating. Being tolerant does not mean you must accept disrespectful or bad attitudes.

Taking advantage of the spread of “political correctness”, intolerant society groups have moved into an aggressive attack. We are going through very intolerant times in society, not just in one country, but I feel all over the world. It will eventually bring to an end our human civilization.

Religion and politics are the two areas of greatest intolerance happening in this world right now. Just last week a young Muslim in India was battered to death for being a Muslim I believe and made him recite the names of Hindu gods during the 5 hour battery on him.

Religious tolerance means that you favor extending religious freedom to people of all faith traditions, even though you probably disagree the validity of their beliefs and practices. Christianity is the religion that takes greatest intolerance from all other religions. Because the message of Christ is universal or Catholic. Catholic means, applicable to all men at all times. It is true in an absolute sense. Obviously then, only one can be universal. All other religions are limited either to one race, language or nation. Jewish religion was limited to one nation. Hinduism is limited to caste system and one has to be born a Brahmin before he/she can finally attain liberation. And caste system is prevalent only in India. Islam, though claiming to be universal is limited to people who can speak Arabic, because one has to know Arabic to understand the words of Allah. One has to pray in Arabic. Quran is not considered holy if it is printed in any other language. Bible, on the contrary was written in more than one language even in the original source and there are no languages now in which Bible is not translated. Bible is Holy irrespective of the language it is printed.  Therefore, Catholics profess in their creed: I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.

The truth and divine origin of Christianity have been made to depend on its supernatural character, and to stand or fall with a certain view of miracles. No other religion has miracles to authenticate their genuineness of the message, except Christianity. Therefore Christianity makes exclusive claims which are hurting other religions to spread and that is one of the reasons the truth of Christianity is always under attack. Most of the social or political issues like abortion, euthanasia, same sex marriages, cohabitation and so on, are hot button issues for the Church. The Church cannot go against truths revealed in the Bible. Then it will not be Catholic any more. Truth is truth for all human beings, not for people in just one country. Tolerance does not mean we keep quiet about these issues because it is going to hurt others’ sensitivity. You are not expected to be vitriolic in expressing your dissent. If you know the right thing and if you are keeping quiet just because it would hurt others’ feelings, you are not a true Christian. One of the spiritual works of mercy is to correct the wrong person patiently. Teach the ignorant. If we keep quiet, it will not probably help people with wrong notion about those issues. Tolerance means not to hate a person on the ground of his or her belief in a particular thing. It is willingness to work with a person of differing opinion or stand. This is what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples in today’s gospel. He did not favor his disciples’ retaliatory attitude. He won the Samaritans over by his tolerance and forgiveness. Therefore the Samaritans were one of the first groups who became Christians en masse soon after Jesus’ resurrection. Let’s learn and practice the attitude of tolerance and forgiveness otherwise we cannot be called Christians.