Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HOP Vol XX Special Number

1968 No 2

44

(07688)The basic problem concerns love to our neighbours« 7n this ■ re spec j'“he Parable of* the Good Samaritan (Luke 10s 25—27), in view of a fuller and purer understanding which supersedes the former interpretation of the parable, has a special and paradigmatic significance in the preaching of our churches«. Who is neighbour? The answers to this question we can supply are sucq an the one foliovdng and some similar to it; ray neighbour is precisely the man, who, in view of his given conditions, is standing farthest from me« The neighbour is the man who becomes my benefactor (Barth)« It is at this point that we understand the very instructive cine' to the parable: the one asking the question is addressing his question "from above’1, in the senses' who is tav neighbour to whcrn I owe ny help? But Jesus makes him see the question "from down upwards", thus correcting the query: ’Who is thy neighbour? Lo,tfce mai^ who hatfi helped thee« We underterd that the act cf the Good Samaritan is n<^ an '’’ethical minimum", but, in a given situation, the only way cf expressing the love of Christ« Let it not mislead us that, in this case, the act of th Good Samaritan has no "religious" decoration whatever- (Stauffer)« And we 3.1s b realize, that Jesus, in this case also, speaks of- the "pne tiling reedful" not to be missed; the only thing tobe done in the given situation; the s^bstis^ tution of which with something else would-be a lie; something fpr which we must have time, but, in order to do it, we are to seek the will/'God so that wc may obey the command? "Go, and do thou likewise"«' We might go on enumerating further viewpoints, but, instead, we point out that one is justified to call this parable the keynote cf our preaching as regards the interpretation of Christian love to our neighbour-,56)

The next task of very great importancö in our preaching concerns the new and wide-ranging problens of the collectivized form of life» At this point, too, our sermons, first of all, try to show the Biblical foundation; our communion with people is the necessary consequence cf our fellowship with Christ» Communal life, already in the Old Testament, is the object cf Gel3s action. But, with Christ, a new err. begins, and one cf the basic facts of the New Testament life of the Church is recorded in the Acts of the /posters as follows: "They continued steadfastly,•. in fellowship" (2:42)» Standing on this Biblical foundation, our churches, while surveying the life cf the .

make the profession that today the question of cojiminity ha3 become a proDleta. of world-wide significance, the collectivized form of life being the. only possible life-pattern cf the future. Hence great importance is attached to the • servioe of the Church in the life of our people in that th^ Church educates the members cf the congregations in the ways of collective, living so that the blessings of this education may yield palpable fruits in the field cf collective living« The Church is to tell with penitence and also with prophetic courage that the members of our churches, too, must overcome what has already been overcome in the facts of the social transformation new i/i progreso« We proclaim that this ja only possible if our people is freed from selfj.shness, if our fellOT-citizens no longer consider work as the means whereby to acquire possessions but primarily as the means whereby they make the life cf tihpmunity richer and more abundant, and if they realize that their individual