The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 120 -
About neighborly love.
I said: "You will do very good at that. But now I will tell you something else, more precisely to your heart, in a parable: suppose you should travel for certain matters and business on a faraway trip. But since you are in foreign countries, after many days of traveling away from home, it could happen - as this already happened many times in the world by permission from above - that your whole fortune, which you had taken for your long and faraway trip, would be lost and you then would be totally desperate in the foreign country in a completely strange place, after which you would feel very sad, and walk around with a sad face in that strange place.
2
But someone would clearly notice it to you and would ask you: 'Friend, you seem to be very sad and cast down. Tell me what you lack.'
3
You would tell him about the misfortune, and upon this he would say to you: 'Friend, come, I will help you, but be careful next time and protect well what is yours. If you can refund me when you have an opportunity what I am giving you now, then you will have done well, and if you will not be able to do that, then I will not be your creditor.' After that, the man would give you what you had lost.
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Now tell Me, and also yourself how unbelievably glad you would be and how much you would praise God and such a noble man. And when you then came back safely, would you then not do everything to show yourself extremely grateful to him and also to God?
5
But now imagine this also of somebody else who would come to you from far away and who had a misfortune, and who came at your prosperous inn, and full of sadness he cries, not knowing what to do. Now, if you would go out to ask him: 'Friend, you are very sad and you seem to be in a very annoying situation? What is wrong? Tell me openly, because look, I am someone who - as far as it is in my power - am willing to help.' Then that man would say to you: 'Ah, noble friend, I have traveled for business from a faraway country to this place, and not far from here I have been robbed by thieves who have stolen all my money which consisted of 20 pounds of gold and moreover still a 1.000 pieces of silver at the current rate of this country, and now I am here without any means, and so far away from my country and home I see no way out and I do not know where I can receive help.' But if then you would say to him: 'Friend, come, I will help you. You do not even have to tell me your name, your country and your place of residence, but you surely will come to know the name of this country, this place and also my name. If at one time you can bring me the money that I lend to you, you will do well in the eyes of God and all good and just men, and if you will not be able to do that, it will be all right also', after which you then would give him what he had lost. What do you think how God would consider and reward such a deed of neighborly love? And will this man, who you have made happy again, once he will be home, not make effort in every respect to show himself thankful and grateful because you have shown him without any self-interest such a great friendship? And even if that man, in the excitement of his earthly happiness, would maybe not think about you, will in that case God not think about you a hundredfold?
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Truly, whoever will do such deeds without self-interest, but solely out of pure neighborly love, he is also a great friend of God, and is already on this Earth equal to the angels of the Heavens and he has the abundance of the Kingdom of God already in his heart.
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Because a poor person from another country is a 100 times poorer than a poor person in his own country who still can find easily help with al those who know his need, but the poor person from a strange country is like an under aged child who still cannot make his need known to anybody, except by crying. Therefore, be also merciful to strangers, then you will be accepted also mercifully in Heaven, because for Heaven you are until now still mere strangers to whom during your earthly trip towards it a misfortune has happened. Now what do you think about these words of Mine?"
8
The innkeeper said: "Lord and Master, what can someone like us still add to that? This is a pure truth, and for people like us there is nothing else to do except during such occasions to execute its pure godly meaning. For what would do good to me if I were in need in a foreign country, I also am indebted to a foreigner in my country. Because those who live in countries and kingdoms far away from here are indeed also human beings. Even if they have other customs and another faith, this must, according to me, be no reason, and one should not act according to the teaching of our Pharisees who say that the true Jew must consider all gentiles as dogs as long as they persist in their paganism, and that the one who does a good deed to a gentile will bring God's wrath over him, selling his soul to the devil. He rather should also be kind to the gentiles and show them that he as a Jew is a good and kind person. Then the gentile will more easily ask: 'Friend, what is the teaching of your faith of which such good men are originating?', as when I should show myself as a hard and besides that still hostile Jew.
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If I show true friendship to the gentile, then the result is surely not that I myself am accepting his dark faith, as the Pharisees say, but I remain a Jew and by my friendliness I only have shown the gentile the way by which he also can become a good Jew.
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True love and meekness are for all men certainly a much better teacher and converter than rage and revenge against those who certainly without their fault are in the night of the spirit. Just like it certainly would be extremely foolish and inhuman to hate, avoid, despise and not showing any love to a person for the reason that he has lost the light of his eyes. So it seems to be all the more foolish and worse when one should never make effort to show even by far any human kindness to people who are blind in the spirit and cannot help themselves.
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The fact that we Jews are unfortunately mostly hard and behaving unkind to foreigners is after all nobody else his fault except our priests who would rather see when we offer all the best fruits to them and provide the foreigners with gooseberries. But from now on it will be quite different in my house. Your word, Lord and Master, will be in future times the rule of conduct for the actions of my whole house, and I will take care that also my neighbors in the whole region will conform to me."
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I said: "You have now spoken well and truthfully in every respect. And so it is. The blindness of the Pharisees is the only cause of all the wrong things that are now in use among the Jews. They are themselves blind leaders of blind people who, when they come to a hole the two will certainly fall into it while later neither one of them will be able to help the other out. Therefore, you should listen and accept from them nothing else except the teachings of Moses and the prophets. But you should abhor their own regulations, just like their works, which are mere and solely evil.
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They say indeed that the elders, scribes and Pharisees are sitting on the chairs of Moses and Aaron. So be it. Accept therefore only from them what they will read you of Moses and Aaron, but all the rest you should consider as a whitewashed grave that glitters from the outside but is within full of decay and dirty stench and death.
14
Now I have said and shown you that which is most necessary according to the full truth. If you will live and act accordingly, you will also receive the reward which I have promised you, for I Myself have the power to give it to you, just as I also have the power by My word and by My will to make all bodily diseases completely healthy and to awaken the dead to life of which all who are here around Me can give a valid testimony to you. And after Me, they will also do that, when I will have returned from where I came. But now enough of all this. Now we will have a closer look at your house."