15th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025

This past week, we saw heartbreaking images from Texas where devastating floods swept through communities, destroying homes and taking lives. People were stranded. 

Families lost everything. First responders did heroic work, but as we’ve seen in so many disasters—wildfires, hurricanes, pandemics, floods—there are never enough first responders to reach everyone in time.

And that’s where neighbors come in.

A few months ago, I came across a story about a woman named Isabel Sanchez who lives in Boulder County, Colorado. 

During a wildfire in 2021 flames ripped through neighborhoods but Isabel stayed calm. 

Why? 

Because she knew her neighbors. She was prepared, and she was ready to help others.

In the aftermath, she helped form a group that trains ordinary people—especially in mobile home parks and lower-income communities—to become “first responders” for each other in times of disaster. 

They help each other prepare for evacuation, share food and tools, and just as importantly—get to know one another. 

One of her teammates put it this way: “The number one thing you can do is get to know your neighbors. That’s how lives are saved.”

That’s the message Jesus is preaching today.

We know the parable well. 

A man is robbed and left half-dead. A priest and a Levite pass him by—maybe because they’re busy, maybe because they’re afraid, maybe because they don’t think he’s their responsibility. 

But a Samaritan—someone who would’ve been seen as an outsider, an enemy—is moved with compassion. He stops. He helps. He becomes a neighbor.

And then Jesus says something simple and powerful: “Go and do likewise.”

Let’s be honest—this is a hard parable to preach. Especially today. Because our communities are divided. 

People pass each other by for political reasons, religious reasons, social reasons, personal grievances, and just plain exhaustion. 

We’re suspicious. We’re overworked. We don’t want to get involved.

But Jesus challenges us: Who is your neighbor?

He doesn’t let us define it by zip code or political party or religion. 

The neighbor is the one who needs you. The one who suffers. The one God places in your path. 

And we’re called to stop, to help, to show mercy—just as God has shown mercy to us.

That’s not just “nice advice.” 

That’s the commandment Moses speaks of in the first reading: “It is already in your mouth and in your heart—you have only to carry it out.”

This is the spirit behind the Community Preparedness Training in Boulder County, and it’s the same spirit we’ve seen in places like Texas this week—neighbors checking in on each other, helping evacuate the elderly, sharing food and blankets, forming human chains to rescue the stranded. 

When you know your neighbors—when you love your neighbors—that’s when lives are saved.

When disasters strike—and they will—it’s not always official rescue crews who arrive first. More often than not, it’s the person next door—the neighbor who notices, the friend who checks in, the stranger who stops to help.

Because when you know someone’s name, when you’ve eaten their food, it’s hard to walk past them.

It’s just like the Samaritan.

This week’s Gospel invites us not just to think about eternal life, but about this life—here and now. Who is suffering on your road from Jerusalem to Jericho? Who has been robbed of dignity, peace, safety, connection?

It might be someone in your pew.
It might be someone on your street.
It might be someone who votes differently than you.

Let’s not be like the priest or the Levite who see and walk away. Let’s be like Isabel Sanchez. Let’s be like the Samaritan. Let’s be neighbors.

Because, as one of the community leaders in Boulder put it: “In a really big emergency, there are not enough first responders. You need your neighbors.”

And in the Kingdom of God, we are all first responders.

Go and do likewise.