Who is the Greater Neighbor?

  A Sermon by the Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss

"Which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?"  And he said, 'He who showed mercy on him.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.'" Luke 10:25-37.

"The church of the Lord is not here, nor there, but it is everywhere, both within those kingdoms where the church is, and out of them, where people live according to the precepts of charity. Hence it is that the church of the Lord is scattered through the whole world, and yet it is one" AC 8152.

"How do I get to heaven?" asked the tempter, a lawyer seeking to enmesh Jesus in complicated argument.  The answer was to love the Lord above all things, and one's neighbor as oneself.  Seeking to pursue the argument, the lawyer asked, "Yes, but who is my neighbor?"

    The response the Lord gave marks the moment in history when the idea of goodness changed.  It was that dramatic, that earth-shaking.  Picture the frustration of the lawyer and his supporters.  A story was being told which defined a crucial need, condemned the ones they would have chosen as the neighbor, and set up a member of a hated race as the hero.  A person was not the neighbor because she or he was a relative, a friend, a member of the same class or race or country. A person was the neighbor based on his or her life.  The Samaritans - those hated, despised people - were more the neighbor that fellow Jews if they were good people. 

    Christians cannot congratulate themselves on having learned this lesson easily.  The last twenty centuries abound in ethnic and racial persecution - much of it by Christians.  Today this is still true, and at times we all find ourselves beset by prejudices - even such petty ones as preferring our own city's or nation's athletes, even if they are selfish, boorish and immoral people, to a more upright athlete from another town or country.  

    Who was neighbor, the Lord asked, to him who fell among thieves?  The negative answer was that the members of the lawyer's own race were not neighbors - even if they were men of dignity in the Jewish culture.  Their status gave them no right to consideration.  Their lack of mercy defined them. 

    The Writings set out this principle as clearly as possible.  "It is believed," they say, "that a brother, kinsman or relation is more a neighbor than a stranger; and that he who is born in one's country is more a neighbor than one born out of the country.  But everyone is a neighbor according to his good, be he Greek or Gentile" (Char. 75).  "Everyone is the neighbor according to spiritual affinity" (Char. 76). 

    Goodness is the neighbor, and your best neighbor is the one who loves spiritual values and pursues them; this is followed by moral and then civic values.  Now we may not know our neighbor's deepest loves, but we can get a sense, the Writings say, about which person is "honest and faithful."  Aren't those the people we choose to trust and to work with?  (TCR 410).  The greatest neighbor, then, is the person who loves spiritual and moral and civic values and to all appearances pursues them in life. 

    The parable of the Good Samaritan crosses another boundary also, however.  For the Priest and Levite were members of the lawyer's religious order, and the Samaritan was a gentile.  This also is not a message which the Christian Church has learned too well, for there are many sects which claim that you cannot get to heaven if you do not believe as they do.  By that standard the Good Samaritan was condemned - yet our Lord presented him as the true neighbor. 

    This too the Writings strongly affirm.  "The church of the Lord is not here, nor there, but it is everywhere, both within those kingdoms where the church is, and out of them, where people live according to the precepts of charity. Hence it is that the church of the Lord is scattered through the whole world, and yet it is one" (AC 8152).  Another passage states it differently: "I can love all in the universe according to their religion, not more those in my own country than in other kingdoms, and not more those in Europe than in Africa.  I love a Gentile more than a Christian if he lives well according to religion, if from the heart he worships God, saying, 'I will not do this evil because it is against God.' But I do not love him according to his doctrine, but according to his life; since if I love him according to his doctrine alone, I love him as an external person; but if according to his life, I love him also as an internal person." (Char. 89).

    The Writings explain also how a community is a greater neighbor than an individual.  This is because the use of a community is higher than the uses of its individual components.  This extends to the country:  "There is a law engraved on human hearts that one's country should be loved, not as a person loves himself, but more than oneself. This law commands, and this is what every righteous man declares, that if one's country is threatened with destruction by an enemy or any other danger, it is a noble act to die in its defense, and a soldier should take pride in shedding his blood for it. People say this because one's country ought to be loved that dearly." (TCR 414). 

    Even higher than the country is the church itself, for it takes care of spiritual life while the country looks after civil life; and "civil life is a temporary life, which has an end and which is then as if it had not been; while spiritual life is eternal, having no end" (TCR 415).

    Today that "church" is the New Church, from which is spiritual life for all human beings.  If there is a church where the Word is and where it is understood and obeyed, that is like a center, from which there is light and life to all good people in the world.  We love the New Church and serve it because of this most sacred use. It is the source of direct communication with heaven, and from it the knowledge of the visible God, the Lord Jesus Christ, may spread.  Were it to go out of existence - and the Lord has promised that it will not (Coronis 24 and LII) - the human race would
eventually perish.  

    Yet there is an even greater neighbor, as our final lesson explained.  The Lord's kingdom throughout the whole world and in heaven should be considered above all classes of people.  The Lord's church is composed of all, throughout the world, who live the life of religion.  It does not matter that they are in falsity, as long as they do what they truly believe their God requires of them.  This willingness is what the Lord quickens, and such people will eagerly receive the truth in the life to come (AC 3768 et al). 

    This universal church of the Lord is called "the communion of saints."  There is a deep bond between all who are seeking the Lord, of whatever religious persuasion they may be.  It is to these that the Lord came in the Word for the New Church, to teach them that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns, whose kingdom shall be for ages of ages.  It was of His great mercy to reveal for them the path of life, that they may not stumble in the darkness, but see their way in the light of His new revelation.  "To give light to those that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our steps into the way of peace." (Luke 1:79). 

    The Lord on earth redefined who our neighbor is.  Good people are the neighbor more than relatives, friends, countrymen.  Good is the true neighbor, in whomever it is found.    In the Writings He shows us a series of neighbors, from an individual, through a community, through a country, the church, and finally His church throughout the world and in heaven.  

    How do we use such a teaching?  For example, if a person is working for his country and an individual comes to him with a plea for immediate and pressing help, will he ignore the individual because the country is a higher use?  That could hardly be a valid application.  Look at the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Might the priest and Levite have argued that they were on more important work when they passed by on the other side?  Yet they were wrong to act as they did.  Individual needs sometimes take on a more urgent quality than greater uses do.  The Writings speak of the truism that we should be neighbors to ourselves and our families first, and they agree - in a sense.  We have to provide for ourselves first, otherwise we have no ability to help others.  So help to individuals - even to ourselves - is first in time, they say.  But the end is that we and those we help may then be able to serve others.  (TCR 406).

    Let us look at the uses of our church.  Our highest use is to serve the Lord in His building of His New Church upon the earth.  Should not the New Church consider this the most important priority in all that it does?  As a church we should strive to be aware of the millions in the universal church of the Lord who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.  They do not have the truth that we do.  They know nothing of the life after death or true married love or the wonderful interplay of faith and charity.  They are not uplifted in times of tragedy by the knowledge of how the Lord's merciful providence works in things greatest and least.  They do not have a clear picture in their minds of a visible, loving, present God, nor a clear awareness of the way of repentance through which we draw even closer to Him.

    It is this deepest vision that uplifts us - the promise that the New Church will fill the world in time, and bring to others the joy that it has brought to us.  But it does not lead us to ignore lower duties, otherwise we will fail in both.  The New Church itself must be healthy, or it cannot perform its use to the world.  Our congregations must be imbued with the truths of the Word, or they will not be congregations of the New Church, and unable to serve it.  And the church grows one by one.  Each individual needs to be given special care by the church.  Each man or woman needs to be treasured, and loved for his or her spiritual good, encouraged in moral principles, promoted in the uses they may perform for the community.  The true church of the Lord grows in each individual human heart and mind.  It is there that truth is insinuated, and a genuine understanding grows up, and the decision to follow the way of truth is made, and the Lord awakens her or him to spiritual life.

    It is with individuals, congregations, and the church as a whole that much of our efforts are concentrated, for it is indeed first in time to ensure that we are healthy enough to do the greatest work of charity for the world.  Yet first in end is that the Lord's will may be done, and His New Church may benefit all who long for it. 

    When we think of people worshiping in churches and other holy places throughout the world, we may indeed be aware that many of them do not see and worship the Lord as He would wish to be worshiped.  For example, many Christians think of Him as having made a sacrifice to appease the wrath of God the Father, and believe that if they merely have faith, they will be saved.  How much better would it be were they able to approach the one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and know that the life of repentance, the active choice to shun evils and do good from religion, is the way to be close to Jesus Christ, the one only God? 

    Yet we can think also of the sincerity of religious people throughout this globe, of the dreams deep in their hearts, of their loves and intentions, their hope to be good people who do what is right, their effort to follow paths of justice and truth. We can picture this communion of souls, this one church of the Lord on earth, this pulsating, living community, turning in humility to the Him, praying for His help in their lives, receiving answers and making their journey, often in the darkness, towards heaven.  There are millions of them, and in each of their hearts today the Lord is working, with whatever truth He finds, and they will indeed be strengthened and led.  We may imagine their joy when they come into the spiritual world and are told by the angels who the Lord is, and what spiritual life is truly like.  We may picture the eagerness with which they will imbibe those truths - the same truths that are in the Writings - and be led to heaven.  And we may pray that this joy may come to many more here on earth, and that our church, the General Church of the New Jerusalem, may play a small role in quickening the spread of the Lord's Word to this greatest congregation.  Amen. 

Lessons: Matt 8:5-13; Luke 10:25-37; TCR 406-416 selections     

Who is the greatest neighbor: Lessons

Matt 8:5-13
5  Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading
with Him,
6  saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully
tormented."
7  And Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him."
8  The centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should
come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.
9  "For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to
my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
10  When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed,
"Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in
Israel!
11  "And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
12  "But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
13  Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; and as you have believed,
so let it be done for you." And his servant was healed that same hour.

Luke 10:25-37:
25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, "Teacher,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?"
27  So he answered and said, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your
mind,' and 'your neighbor as yourself.'"
28  And He said to him, "You have answered rightly; do this and you will
live."
29  But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my
neighbor?"
30  Then Jesus answered and said: "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to
Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded
him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31  "Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him,
he passed by on the other side.
32  "Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and
passed by on the other side.
33  "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he
saw him, he had compassion.
34  "So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and
he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35  "On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to
the innkeeper, and said to him, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you
spend, when I come again, I will repay you.'                                   
   
36  "So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among
the thieves?"
37  And he said, "He who showed mercy on him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go
and do likewise."

TCR 406:  Every person taken singly is the neighbor who is to be loved, but
he should be loved according to the quality of his good.
 
A person was not born for his own sake, but for the sake of others; that is,
so that he should not live for himself alone, but for others. Otherwise no
society could hold together, nor could there be any good in it....

TCR 409:   Before the Lord came into the world hardly anyone knew what the
internal man was or what charity was. This is why in many places He taught
loving care, which is charity; and this is a difference between the Old and
New Testaments (or Covenants). The Lord taught that kindness should be done
out of charity to an opponent or enemy in this passage of Matthew:
 
You have heard that the men of old were told, You are to love your neighbor
and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse
you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who hurt and persecute
you, so that you may be sons of your Father in the heavens. Matt. 5:43-45.
 
And when Peter asked Him how many times he should forgive one who sinned
against him, whether it should be as many as seven times, He replied:
 
Not up to seven times, I tell you, but up to seventy times seven times. Matt.
18:21, 22.
 
I have been told from heaven that the Lord forgives everyone his sins, and
never punishes him for them, or even imputes them to him, because He is love
itself and good itself. Nevertheless the sins are not wiped away by this, for
it is only by repentance that they can be wiped away. For if he told Peter to
forgive up to seventy times seven times, is there anything that the Lord
Himself would not do?

TCR 412: Human beings collectively, which are one's community, great or
small, and a group of communities, which is one's country, is the neighbor
who is to be loved.
 
Those who are ignorant of the true meaning of the term 'the neighbor' think
that it is an individual, and doing him kindnesses is loving the neighbor.
But the neighbor and love for him have a wider range of meaning, rising to a
higher level as the number of people increases....
[2] Love towards the neighbor takes a fuller form when it is love towards a
community than when its object is a separate individual.

TCR 414:  The reason one's country is more the neighbor than one's community
is that it is composed of a number of communities, so that love directed
towards it is wider and higher. Moreover, loving one's country is loving the
well-being of the people. One's country is the neighbor because it is a kind
of parent; it is where one was born; it has fed and feeds one; it has
protected and protects one from injury. One should do good to the country one
loves according to its needs, some of which are natural, some spiritual.
Natural needs are concerned with its secular life and order, spiritual ones
with its spiritual life and order.

TCR 415:   Since a person is born destined for everlasting life, and it is
the church which brings him to this, the church ought to be loved as neighbor
in a higher degree. For the church's teaching is the means leading to and
giving entry to everlasting life. It is the truths of its teaching which lead
and the good deeds performed which give entry to it. ...
 
[2] Another reason why the church is the neighbor to be loved in a higher
degree, and so more than one's country, is that one's country introduces one
to secular life, but the church introduces one to spiritual life, the life
which distinguishes man from living purely as an animal. Moreover, secular
life is temporary, having an end, and is then as if it had never been. But
spiritual life, having no end, is everlasting, so that the term 'being' may
be used of it, but 'not-being' of the other form of life.

TCR 416:  The reason why the Lord's kingdom is the neighbor to be loved in
the highest degree is that the Lord's kingdom means the church throughout the
whole world, what is called the communion of saints, and it also means
heaven. If therefore a person loves the Lord's kingdom, he loves everyone in
the whole world who acknowledges the Lord and has faith in Him and charity
towards the neighbor, as well as all in heaven. Those who love the Lord's
kingdom love the Lord above all else, and consequently have greater love to
God than all others. For the church in the heavens and upon earth is the
Lord's body, since its members are in the Lord and the Lord in them.
 
[2] Love for the Lord's kingdom then is love towards the neighbor in the
fullest sense. ... For that love dwells at the highest level in a person, and
what is highest flows into what is lower, bringing it to life.... This is why
the Lord says:

Seek first the kingdom of the heavens and its righteousness, then everything
will be given to you in addition. Matt. 6:33