The Common Faith: A Grenade Exploding in One’s Hand

The Common Faith: A Grenade Exploding in One's Hand

Abstract

This paper challenges the conventional interpretation of the neighbour in the parable of the Good Samaritan, arguing that the neighbour is not the one who needs help but the one who shows mercy and enters into communion. Drawing on John Zizioulas's relational ontology, I demonstrate that the parable offers an ontological rather than ethical definition of neighbourliness. Against the backdrop of contemporary Georgian society's attempts to define the neighbour on the basis of common faith, I argue that such an approach contradicts the Gospel and leads to self-destructive outcomes. The paper examines how shared faith without genuine communion—exemplified by Georgia's historical relationship with Russia—functions not as a weapon of defense but as a grenade exploding in one's hand.

Keywords: Good Samaritan, neighbour, John Zizioulas, communion, otherness, relational ontology, Georgian Orthodoxy

Paper presented at the European Academy of Religion Annual Conference 2023 University of St Andrews, Scotland

Dear ladies and gentlemen!

I want to thank the panel convenors for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you. In the following, I dare to take up as much of your time as the time limit allows me.

I explore the question of the 'other' and the 'neighbour' in the parable of the Good Samaritan against the backdrop of present-day Georgian society, which is trying to redefine its attitude towards the other and the neighbour on the basis of a common faith. I was born in Abkhazia, a region occupied by Russia since the 1990s, where shared faith has been weaponized to justify exclusion. This personal experience shapes my theological inquiry.

Does the 'other' and the 'neighbour' of the parable refer to the same phenomenon? Does the 'other' have a significant role in the process of achieving personhood as explained by Orthodox theologians such as John Zizioulas? According to this thinking, it is important to look beyond similarities and differences for 'the event of communion' because the crucial part is essentially provided by the fact of encounter per se and because according to Christian teaching being is communion.

Now, regarding a common misunderstanding: the mistake is to be found in the notion that every person seeking your attention (help, compassion, sharing joy) is necessarily your neighbour. Many claim that the neighbour is the one who needs you here and now, and you are supposed to provide help out of Christian ethics and human solidarity.

However, Jesus says that the neighbour is the one who shows mercy and not the one who pleads for it or needs it. The injured man returns to life by encountering the other. When we define the neighbour according to the teaching of the Gospel, then the story acquires an ontological meaning instead of an ethical one. The neighbour is the one who enables me to stay alive. Therefore the neighbour resembles God, because God called us to life, so the neighbour gives us a chance to remain in and continue our lives.

Thus, by answering the question about who is the neighbour to the weak correctly, we will also be able to define who our neighbour is. Jesus says: "Go and do likewise!", meaning to act like the one who showed mercy.

So, the correct definition could be stated as follows: The neighbour is the one who saw, noticed the injured one, and acted for his benefit—the one who entered into relationship. A neighbour is not someone who happens to be around me, but the one who willingly comes closest to me and provides life-saving care in the most crucial and decisive moment. The neighbour is the one who heard me at the most intrinsic and fundamental level.

Matthew 22:37-39: "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

God is our neighbour in the same way as the Samaritan became the neighbour to the injured man. Both God and the Samaritan entered into communion with 'the other'. It is important to look beyond similarities and differences in order to reach "the event of communion". In order to continue fulfilling the commandments of the Lord, it is necessary to participate in the spirit of communion.

According to Christian teaching, co-believers hold no privileged position when it comes to choosing one's neighbour. The one who is truly considered trustworthy, neighbourly, and friendly is not the one who is similar, related by kinship, or shares the same faith, but the one who enters into a relationship of genuine goodness—even if that person comes from a completely unacceptable group. The priest and the Levite in the parable were co-believers with the injured man, yet they passed by. The Samaritan—the outsider, the one considered religiously unacceptable—became the neighbour by entering into communion.

There is an ongoing attempt in Georgia to label Western culture coupled with liberalism as an enemy, while the Russian Church is seen as a neighbour for preaching monotheism and nationalism. When we in Georgia considered Russia as co-believer and as a weapon against evil, we operated with a non-Christian definition of neighbour. What we thought from a Christian perspective was a weapon of defense turned out to be self-destructive—like a grenade exploding in one's hand.

Russia satisfies neither of the two conditions for being a neighbour or ally. First, Russia does not believe that kinship gives no privileged position—it does not accept that being an "elder brother" or any other form of hierarchical dominance grants it the right to rule over others. Second, Russia cannot and does not enter into relationships of genuine goodness with us (or perhaps with anyone). It operates from a model of domination rather than communion.

My neighbour is the one who gives me freedom. Being is not superior to freedom. Therefore, the Russian civilizational model is a lie, for it links the need for the survival of the human species to their biology.

As the late Metropolitan John Zizioulas says in his fundamental work Communion and Otherness, Christianity throughout the centuries has tried to conceive the freedom of man in terms of obedience of man to God. It has failed because it has been unable to maintain freedom in and through this obedience. Man has felt like a slave and rejected the yoke of God. Atheism sprang out of the very heart of the Church and the notion of freedom became prominent again. There is more than 'obedience', or rather something quite different from it, that is needed to bring man to a state of existence in which freedom is not a choice among many possibilities but a movement of love. This state obviously can only be realized from outside human existence. The whole of Christian doctrine ought to be precisely about this (Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, p.237).

It is precisely this kind of love that motivates a stranger to go out to meet the disabled instead of seeking the type of existence based on similarity. Relationships based on sharing the same faith, which display no signs of valuing otherness and which threaten us and leave us in the general and natural realm, will pass by us like the priest and the Levite, bringing only death and harm.

In the Church of Georgia, as well as in many other Orthodox churches, there is still no aspiration towards relationships based on personal identity affirmed by the understanding of the concept of one's neighbour according to the Gospel. The fear of the unknown hidden in the fear of the stranger as well as the other is still prevalent, even when he gets in touch with us like another Samaritan and benefits us.

Placing the understanding of neighbour within the frames of a common faith contradicts the evangelical meaning. However, it is also not necessary to see the neighbour as an alien, a stranger, or an outcast. Here it should be emphasized that the concept of the neighbour is not determined by identity or origin, but by the relational act of entering into communion.

If this answer is correct, then the damaged person stays alive and recognizes his neighbour. One can say that in this case being coincides with communion. If we insist that the neighbour is necessarily someone like me or someone who needs help, we deny the need for communion for the sake of being. In this case being is defined as keeping up the idea of goodness or likeness.

The other does not automatically become a neighbour and in the same way, a co-believer does not hold this position by privilege.

Therefore, it becomes clearer why the commandment of loving one's neighbour is similar to that of loving God who also called me to life through communion. Both God and the neighbour perceive me and come forward to meet me.

But when we try to love someone not according to Gospel principles but according to human cultural standards such as common faith, shared backgrounds, similar interests and beliefs, we pick up with our hands a grenade, which is bound to blow up in our faces, causing great harm to ourselves and others.