Call yourself a Christian, then, Father?
This is one of the sayings ringing in my ear as I walk past a beggar in the street. Love of neighbour is at the heart of our Christian identity. To love our neighbour is part of our central calling as Christians. ‘ What you have done to the least of my brothers or sisters you have done it to me’ Jesus says to us at the end of Matthew’s gospel (25,40) and again, ‘what you have not done to the least of my brothers or sisters you have not done it to me’ (25,45). But actually it is not as uniquely Christian as we might think, to love your neighbour as yourself is also a Jewish commandment (Lev 19.18), in fact most spiritual traditions or even most humane ethical systems contain such imperatives. The question directed to me by the beggar in the street might just as well be ‘call yourself a human then, Bernhard?’ What Jesus does with this commandment is to turn it on its head. When someone asked him ‘who is my neighbour?’ he answers by telling the famous story of the Good Samaritan and at the end he asks: which one of these three actors in the story was the neighbour? Remember only one of the three was the helpful good Samaritan. Who was neighbour to the one who fell among the robbers and was left lying in the street (Luke 10,25-37)? Jesus seems to suggest that we ourselves should regard ourselves as neighbours. Neighbours are not objects who receive our charity, we ourselves are neighbours and then those whom we help and love also become human.
Bernhard Schunemann
