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Looking over past homilies, I realized I’ve preached on the Good Samaritan many times. While I’ve highlighted different angles over the years, the core message has remained the same: be aware of your neighbor’s needs, and don’t limit who you consider your neighbor to be. That’s already a powerful challenge for most of us in how we live, how we practice our faith, and how we interact with others. We all have blind spots. We all have types of people we tend to avoid as we rush through our busy lives.
But there’s another lesson in today’s Gospel—one that’s easy to miss. The scholar of the law who asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” isn’t confused about the commandments. In fact, when Jesus tosses the question back at him, the scholar answers it correctly himself. He knows what to do. But his follow-up question reveals what’s really on his mind: “Who is my neighbor?”
In other words, what’s the least I have to do to get into heaven?
The more you sit with that question, the stranger—and more familiar—it sounds. He doesn’t ask: How can I fall deeply in love with God and bring joy to His heart? He asks: What must I do to inherit eternal life? Not: How can I give myself fully to God? but: What’s the minimum required?
And we shouldn’t be too hard on him. That attitude hits closer to home than we might like. How many of us have wondered, “How late can I be to Mass and still have it count?” Or we go to a Saturday wedding and think, “That takes care of my Sunday obligation, right?” Is my charitable giving based on gross or net income?! How spiritually stingy!
I’m embarrassed to admit that some of the most punctual moments of my life have come while wrapping up prayer. If I told God I’d give Him 30 minutes that day, well… that’s exactly what He got. But Netflix? YouTube rabbit holes? Random internet research? What’s another five minutes—or two hours? This minimalist mindset doesn’t just apply to time. It creeps into how we share our talents, our resources, even our attention. We can be wildly generous with ourselves, yet legalistic, calculated, even stingy with God and others.
But here’s the thing: eternal life isn’t a box to check. It’s not a reward for meeting the quota. It’s a relationship. Who would want to marry someone who asked, “What’s the least I have to do so you won’t divorce me?” What parent wouldn’t be heartbroken to hear their child ask, “What’s the minimum love and respect I need to show you so you’ll keep feeding me?”
No one serious about love would ever ask that kind of question. And yet, how often do we, even if not in words, express that kind of attitude in our spiritual lives?
Jesus, wise teacher that He is, leads the lawyer to answer his own question. The lawyer knows the right thing: love God with your whole heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. But this isn’t about knowing the right thing—it’s about wanting it. The truth is, the minimum requirement for eternal life… is everything. Love with your whole heart. Give yourself completely. That’s unsettling, because none of us can do that perfectly. If “everything” is the minimum, then none of us measures up—not on our own.
And that’s why we need grace. That’s why we need the sacraments—especially the Eucharist and confession. This kind of love isn’t just about avoiding wrongdoing; it’s about being responsible for the good we could have done and didn’t. It’s no longer enough to say, “I didn’t hurt anyone.” We’re now accountable if someone needed our help and we chose not to act.
The lawyer senses this. That’s why he tries to draw a line, to narrow the scope. But Jesus doesn’t give him a nice, clean definition. He gives him a story. And in that story, the answer becomes clear: everyone you can help is your neighbor.
Jesus won’t let the man reduce love to a technicality. If you see someone suffering and can do something, that person is your neighbor. Period.
I can’t help but imagine the lawyer kicking himself after the conversation ends. Maybe wishing he’d kept quiet. In his heart—just like in ours—he knows Jesus is right. We’re called not to do the minimum, but the maximum. But the maximum is hard. It's overwhelming. It costs something. And so, like the lawyer, we’re tempted to retreat back into our own self-made rules about who’s deserving of our attention, our love, our care.
The path to heaven is paved with the choices we make to love like Christ. And that kind of love reaches beyond what’s comfortable. It reaches toward the forgotten, the inconvenient, the unlovable, the different. That’s the love that reflects God’s own heart—always expanding, always reaching, always healing.
So may you and I become people who don’t ask, “What’s the least I have to do?” but instead ask, “How can I love more?” May we be defined by the generous heart of the Good Samaritan. May we offer our time, our care, our presence to all those the Lord places in our path. And may we discover, in doing so, not just the way to eternal life—but the joy of living it even now.
