Holocaust Memorial Day 2012
27 January 2012
Memorial at Westerbork
I can’t escape the fact that in living memory 6 million Jews and countless millions of others were rounded up, transported, selected and executed by, in the main, baptised Christians.
The Shoah was, as it describes, a catastrophe for European Jewry and it remains, to this day, the darkest episode in the history of the Christian Church, a Church that, when it is minded to do so, still struggles to understand the consequences of almost two millennia of anti-Judaism.
The parable of the Good Samaritan, arguably one of the most famous stories ever told, is as good (no pun intended) a place to start as anywhere. For too long many in our congregations have believed it to be about doing ‘good’, about being the one who stoops to help someone in need. Bestowing titles upon the parables often does us no favours; ‘The Good Samaritan’ is a case in point. You see, it’s not really about a Samaritan who comes to the aid of a victim on the dusty road to Jericho. It’s much deeper than that. It’s about a guy who asked Jesus to tell him who is neighbour was so that he might love him.
And the answer is so shattering that the guy can’t even bring himself to utter the race, the ethnicity, the religion, of the one who had been of assistance to the victim.
Our neighbour includes the different, the one who doesn’t share our creed.
Our neighbour includes the one whose culture is alien to ours.
Our neighbour is someone we wouldn’t normally talk to, eat with, let alone love to the point of endangering our own existence.
When Jesus shared his parable with the guy who’d asked who is neighbour was he drew on an old story.
At the time of King Ahaz thousands of men, women and children of Judah were captured by Israel. On their way back to Israel they had to pass through Samaria. It was there that Oded stopped them. He shamed the captors before they scurried off leaving behind the captives. The newly-released were clothed, given sandals, provided with food and drink, anointed and carried on the backs of donkeys to, yes, Jericho before the good Samaritans returned home (2 Chronicles 28.9-15).
The guy who asked Jesus the question would have known his people’s history. He just needed to be reminded of it.
Many of us in the Christian Church know our history. We just need to be reminded of it on a frequent basis. Holocaust Memorial Day is one such occasion. We have walked by all too often when our neighbour has been in need; truth is we may even have been the perpetrator of the crime.
That is the sadness, the terrible, terrible sadness of not remembering who our neighbour is.
