| Barnabas Stephan BETWEEN JERUSALEM AND JERICHO Extract from the sermon by Fr. Barnabas Stephan during the Summer Festival 2003 Medical Mission Institut Würzburg Germany " It is not in heaven, so that you need to wonder who will go up to heaven for us and bring it down to us, so that we may hear it and keep it?" (Dtn 30,12) "Nor is it beyond the seas, so that you need to wonder, who will cross the seas for us and bring it back to us, so that we may hear it and keep it" (Dtn 30,13) The few sentences of this epistle are specially meaningful. They may remind us and relieve us if we picture life with God as too complicated, if we block our own way. They may encourage us if we place too high demands on ourselves and on others, if we overtax ourselves because we expect too much. They draw our attention to the most obvious thing to do, the one we sometimes overlook and by-pass. They refer us to ourselves. They are for me a fresh invitation to listen inwardly. "To fold my ears inwardly" as it is said in a modern poem by Huub Osterhuis. Christians are idealists. We have high ideals as followers of Christ. This should not be given up. Similarly, we should not start out assuming that ideals could be completely fulfilled. It is our task to live with this incompleteness without dropping the ideal and without suffering permanently because it is unattainable. We experience daily how demanding this task is. The story of the good Samaritan (Lk 10,25-37) brings us immediately in touch with our own everyday life. One may hardly talk about this story without being reminded of some examples in one's own surroundings. The first point the story wants to tell us is this: The acid test of our faith takes place everyday. "Who is my neighbour?" This cannot be answered theoretically or through clever academic utterances but solely through my life, my commitment. My neighbour is the one who needs me, the one who needs me urgently, independently from how far away he is. "Who is my neighbour?" This is also a fundamental question for us as individuals, as the Medical Mission Institute and the Medical Mission Hospital. Fantasy and courage to choose new ways are needed again and again. Frequently it weighs heavily on me when I watch how often people waste their strength unnecessarily. There is a blind eagerness which goes too far and deeply hurts and blocks others. A hyper-sensibility which expresses itself in feelings of "not having been noticed" and "not having got one's due". There is a wrong competition between different persons and groups, a wrong anxiety towards other ways than one's own. All this blocks forces - forces which could be made use of in favour of the neighbour. The neighbour has many faces. It is not important to define who is my neighbour but the urgency with which I am expected to do something in an actual situation, in a concrete need. I cannot choose the neighbour because he is there. Frequently the neighbour is uncomfortable to me, he is troublesome, he makes me feel uneasy, his prattle gets on my nerves, his manners make me see red. But: He is and remains my neighbour. My neighbour, that is the son who turned out quite differently from what I had imagined. My neighbour, these are mother and father who cannot understand the opinions their daughter has. My neighbour, that is the elderly colleague at work who realizes that he has reached his peak and who worries about the ditch he falls in when going into pension. My neighbour, that is a woman in our street who can no longer cope with the many demands put on her. My neighbour is the one living next to me who leads a different way of life and also has different political views. My neighbour remains my neighbour also when his distress is no longer reflected in the headlines or talked about publicly. For instance, this is important in many cases of bereavement where the actual misery, loneliness and sadness are often only experienced after four to six weeks, or with the many chronically sick where a lot more staying power is needed for paying a visit again and again. Unfortunately, such events are often too quickly forgotten. The second point which struck me in the story of the good Samaritan is this: True help does not calculate what do I get for it, what is the other one doing for me. These are understandable but unsuitable questions. Generosity of spontaneous giving and giving away, of letting go - these are signs of real help. The third point which appears important to me in to-day's gospel is this: Love of God, the neighbour and myself cannot be separated. It says "You should love your neighbour as yourself". This has meaning. If I quarrel badly with myself and am totally divided, I lack the ability to approach others. "I too am somebody." Therefore, I should not put myself too far back as I can then no more help the other. And I too depend always on assistance. Furthermore, the love of God and the love of the neighbour cannot be played off against each other. Dorothea von Gaza uses a very striking comparison: "Imagine a circle which one scratches with a stick into the ground. The middle is God, the circle line the world where people live. If they wish to approach God they have to move to the center of the circle. And they experience: The closer they come to God the closer they get to each other, and the closer they get to each other, the closer they will be to God. Another important point of the interpretation of this parable of the good Samaritan was shown by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian murdered in 1945. Bonhoeffer said that the one who wants to help his neighbour, will certainly start by pouring balsam on the wounds and dressing them. But the good Samaritan must not stop there. He is obliged to ensure that such attacks as told in the parable do no longer happen. He must also take steps that the evil is rooted out. Thus, we see: The acid test, the test if we take our faith seriously, takes place in everyday life. Real help does without mutual counting. Love of God, love of the neighbour and love of oneself are inseparable. If we wish to help properly we have to help comprehensively. Dressing wounds leads to preventing wounds. These are the four fundamental statements of the story of the good Samaritan. Perhaps we realize the explosive force of this story even more if we visualize some of its main actors: Not the servants of Jewish worship, not official representatives of the Jewish hierarchy who knew and confessed the commandment of the love of one's neighbour but a Samaritan, a foreigner despised by the Jews, a religious heretic, an enemy of the people and friend of the Romans helped the man who had fallen among the robbers, and put into practice the commandment of the love of one's neighbour. The story is located between Jerusalem and Jericho. This, I think, is a symbol. The area around Jericho - there is desert, heat, hardly water, an environment hostile to life. The way between Jerusalem and Jericho - this is for me a symbol of our world, of the life-threatening dangers of our time. The way between Jerusalem and Jericho is everywhere, is there for everybody wherever he lives and acts. |