Loving your neighbour

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 24, 5 November 1985, Page 8

Loving your neighbour

One time in Jesus' days on earth, an educated law teacher tried to trap him by asking the question, "What must I do to receive eternal life?" Jesus asked him what answers he received from the scriptures. The man gave Christ's own summary of loving God completely, and loving your neighbour as yourself. "You are right," said Jesus. "Do this and you will live."

But the teacher wasn't satisfied with the answer, after all it was he that was trapped by his own confession, and he wanted to trap Christ, not himself. He wanted to justify himself, and get off the hook of responsibility in the process, so he tried to slip out of it by asking Christ, "Who is my neighbour?" Jesus didn't answer that evasive question by trying to point out all the people. Instead, he told him the story of the Good Samaritan.

He helped a man who has been attacked and robbetT by thugs and left wounded lying on the road. A priest, or preacher, kept clear of him and kept going. So did the Levite, a religious person of the day, except that he took time to take a good look. The helpless victim received no help from either of them, but a Samaritan, from a group despised by many Jewish people, gave him the help he needed to get back

on his feet, and be restored to a happy, healthy ltfe again. When he had finished the story, Jesus asked the trapper-teacher which one of the three who came upon the wounded person, acted as a neighbour. The teacher had to admit that it was the last. "You go then, and do the same," said Jesus. I wonder if he isn't asking us to do the same to many homosexual persons today. There is no question in my mind that many people of a homosexual orientation have been beaten and wounded by some of our judgmental and condemning attitudes that I hear around us in the world today. The fact that we hear a lot of judgmentalism and condemnation from homosexually orientated persons towards Christians, doesn't relieve us of the responsibility that Christ has laid upon those of us who seek to love God and our neighbour in the name of Christ.

PETITION

I am one Christian who did not sign the petition that went around New Zealand. I did not sign because I believe, as did former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada, that the government should stay out of the bedrooms of a nation and should not tell adults what they can or cannot do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Perhaps here there is a case for raising the age of consent to 1 8 or 1 9? I further believe that homosexually orientated persons are brothers and sisters for whom Christ died, and therefore should be related to in that way. They are persons first, and persons with a different sexual orientation second. I apologise to anyone of homosexual orientation who reads this for my objectifying you. I do not know any other way to talk about it. From my study of sexologists and psychologists, I think most people who have a strong homosexual orientation have found that to be a given, and are not out frantically trying to convert heterosexuals. x

BIBLE

My study of the Bible tells me that it is overwhelmingly opposed to homosexual practice, but favours accepting the homosexual person who doesn't practise his or her orientation. I regret the tie-up between AIDS and the homosexual law reform bill. I am afraid of AIDS. I think most people are, and should be, and that most AIDS cases are spread by some promiscuous homosexual persons, despite the fact that it originated as a heterosexual disease in Africa. There is hysteria in the air that makes matters worse, and if the reform bill is not passed it will be harder for AIDS sufferers to surface. The Homosexual person is my neighbour. Am I a neighbour? Are you a neighbour, to him or her? Rev. Don Bater