| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 11 |
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But there comes no answer of Christly indulgence to such questions. Other people, though they be our enemies, are not thus taken out of the circle of those to whom we owe love. Our part is always pictured for us in the example of the Good Samaritan.
That is, we owe other people service. Service goes with loving. We cannot love truly and not serve. Love without serving is but an empty sentiment, a poor mockery. God so loved the world that he gave. Love always gives. If it will not give, it is not love. It is measured always by what it will give. The needs of other people are therefore divine commands to us, which we dare not disregard or disobey. To refuse to bless a brother who stands before us in any kind of want is as great a sin as to break one of the positive commandments of the Decalogue. Indeed, in a sense, it is the breaking of the whole second table of the commandments – the sense of which is, “Thou shalt love they neighbour as thyself.”
We like to think there is no sin in mere not doing. But Jesus, in his wonderful picture of the Last Judgment, makes men’s condemnation turn on not doing the things they ought to have done. They have simply not fed the hungry, not clothed the naked, not visited the sick, and not blessed the prisoner. To make these sins of neglect appear still more grievous, our Lord makes a personal matter of each case, puts himself in the place of the sufferer who needs it and is not cared for, and tells us that all neglects to give needed kindness to any are shown to him. This divine word gives a tremendous interest to other people, who are brought providentially into the sphere of our life, so that their wants of whatever kind may make appeal to our sympathy and kindness. To neglect them is to neglect Christ. He sends them to us. They represent him. To turn them away is to turn him away.
This matter of serving has multitudinous forms. Sometimes it is poverty that stands at our gate, and money help is wanted. A thousand times more frequently, however, it is not money, but something else more precious, that we must give. It may be loving sympathy. Sorrow is before us. Another’s heart is breaking. Money would be of no use; it would be only a bitter mockery to offer it. But we can hold to the neighbour’s lips a cup of the wine of love, filled out of our own heart, which will give new strength to the sufferer. Or it is the anguish of a life struggle, a human Gethsemane, beside which we are called to watch. We can give no actual aid – the soul must fight its battles alone; but we can be as the angel that ministered in our Lord’s Gethsemane, imparting strength, and helping the weary struggler to win the victory.
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