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Posted on April 20, 2010 in

Life and Death Depend on Our Neighbor by Alex Stamas

by Michelle Hawe

Reverend Fathers, Honorable Judges, Fellow Brothers and Sisters in Christ

Christ is Risen!

“Life and death depend on your neighbor”?  When I started this, I wasn’t sure what that meant.  My next-door neighbor is a middle-aged man and woman.  I don’t see them except occasionally when I ride my bike.  I’ve never talked to them.  I don’t even know if they have kids.  How could these people have something to do with my life and death?  Well, let me try to answer these questions by telling you what I think this quote by St Anthony means.

Saint Anthony the great was a desert father and is considered to be the founder of Christian Monasticism.  He was born in Upper Egypt in 251AD too a well to do family.  He was left an orphan at a young age.  When he was about 20 years old, he heard the words in the Bible that said “If you would be perfect, go and sell your possessions, give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come and follow me.”  He obeyed this teaching and removed himself from the rest of the world and lived in the desert.  During his time in the desert, he prayed, fasted and studied Christianity in order to live the life that Christ wanted him to live. He lived to be 105 years old and became an example of virtue to everyone. 

Today, most of us would not leave all of our possessions and family to read, study, and learn about Christianity.  However, we can still use the knowledge that St. Anthony the Great gave us in his writings and sayings and implement it into our daily lives.  I believe the reason he said that life and death depend on your neighbor is because Christ said you must love God and love your neighbor as yourself.  If your treating your neighbor as you want to be treated, you are not sinning and this would lead you to salvation. I don’t believe that you can love your neighbor without loving God first.  But if you realize that we are all Gods children and that he loves all of us, I think it’s easier to love someone that you know God loves.  Therefore, I think that one of our first lessons to learn in order to live together peacefully and to love your neighbor is to learn to love God. 

Another lesson I learned from reading about St Anthony is that each one of us is responsible for our own salvation.  Our Priest and our parents can guide us, but we are ultimately responsible for doing what God requires of us to go to heaven. 

Another way to seek eternal life is to avoid ungodly actions and temptations.  This will strengthen our bond with Christ, keep us from being distracted and help us continue on our path to salvation.  We can do this by surrounding ourselves with positive influences. 

An example of this model behavior was a fellow member of my Church; our parish council President. He was a very reliable, trustworthy and good-hearted member of our church; he took on his responsibilities with calmness, integrity and love.  He was always there for the Church and never let anyone down.  He took his son to church early to be an altar boy and guided his son to become a better Christian.  Unfortunately, this great man recently passed away, but even in death this true neighbor lead his fellow neighbors to the “Life Giving Springs Orthodox Monastery”.  He is only the third person to be buried in this holy place, and he has by example shown us that this too is a good direction we could follow. 

However, some of our neighbors are not a good influence on us.  Our friends and neighbors can distract us from God and from doing what we know is right.  When we encounter these people, we should pray to God to will take all of their negative influences and turn them into situations of learning to strengthen our faith. This way through both good and bad experiences we can learn to be a better neighbor. Our Christianity will evolve as we learn, mature and endure our life experiences. 

If we surround ourselves with positive people and influences we will strengthen our relationship with God. I think what St. Anthony meant by his quote, is that if we don’t treat our neighbor like we want to
be treated we will be sinning and will not have eternal life but eternal death without GOD.

The neighbor’s St. Anthony is referring to could be the person we sit next to in church or the kids I play volleyball with at school.
They are Anyone that GOD puts in our life.

But as I stated in the beginning, I don’t know my next door neighbor, but in light of what I’ve learned, maybe I’ll try to get to know them.  They could be that Godly influence on me that St. Anthony was talking about.