Introduction: Making the Cross Count
David Porter

Comment: We Don't Have to do Anything
Denis Bambrick

Affliction
David Bolton

When Worlds Collide
Alwyn Thomson

The Way of the Cross
David Porter

Parades Commission
David Porter

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'WE DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING'
In the last issue of Lion & Lamb the author of the comment page invited us to an authentic Christ like love expressed in a practical and courageous care for our 'neighbour' and even our 'enemies'. In my life as a Christian minister in N. Ireland I have been consistently challenged by the nature of this kind of love and have sought in small ways to fulfil its demands. However, I have also discovered in myself and in the church that there is a built-in 'resistance' to the radical call of the gospel to love our neighbour as ourselves.

This resistance is commonly acknowledged but its form is less understood. We tend to resist not by blatant disobedience or blind hate of others but through the more subtle but equally deadly attitudes of neglect, apathy and complacency. When it comes to the biblical imperative to love our neighbour, disobedience is deceptively easy - we simply don't have to do anything.

This kind of apathy is conceivable because of another attitude - a desire for a religious respectability that stays above strife and like the Pharisee of Luke 18 is able to thank God that we are 'not like other men'. This text offers a sober warning - it is possible to ignore the reality of our own brokeness and lack of compassion and still consider our lives to be true and just.

We have a similar insight in the story of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25. It is those who 'neglect' to feed the hungry, visit prisoners or take in strangers who are the focus of judgement. The apathy shown in the presence of needy neighbours is defined as not only complacency to human need but a neglect of Jesus himself. Disobedience is deceptively easy - we simply don't have to do anything.

When Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) he is inviting his religious listeners to move beyond complacency and neglect and to embrace the radical nature of God's love. This is why the early focus of the story is on the priest and the Levite and not on the robbers who left the traveller for dead. It is in the heart of these devotees to orthodoxy that stubborn resistance to the will of God is found. These men represent the 'good' people of all communities who make personal respectability and spiritual purity a priority above mercy. The scripture says that the two pilgrims to Jerusalem 'passed by on other side'. Their failure to fulfil the law love was deceptively easy - they simple didn't do anything.

Neglect by the 'righteous' is contrast by the 'compassion' of the Samaritan. Here is the parable's challenge and threat. The one that crosses the sectarian divide of Jew and Samaritan and fulfils neighbourly love is the one we least expect. Neither do we expect the demands of this love. The love of the Samaritan is called 'compassion' because his involvement with the wounded neighbour is more than a kind act - it is relational. Read through the list of practical involvement that defines the relationship between these two men. It is demanding, responsible, and committed. We can fool ourselves by talk, which is perhaps why Jesus portrays the Samaritan as saying little. It is in his costly engagement with hurt and experience of an historical enemy that the Samaritan shows he loves God, his neighbour and himself. 'Go and do likewise' says Jesus to those waiting for direction.

In N Ireland the sectarian climate is sustained, not by the violence of the 'bad' -people but by the apathy and neglect of the 'good'. It is not enough to be non-sectarian. We must be actively anti-sectarian in our words and actions. It is not enough to lament the brokeness and alienation in our community we must be agents of healing and hope. Our commitment to the gospel and the radical call of Christ to love our neighbour must inform our worship and witness. The healing of a nation will demand this from each of us.

Rev Denis Bambrick is the former minister of Bloomfield Methodist Church. He is now retired and living in Holywood, Co Down. He is also a member of ECONI's Steering Group.