The title is taken from a lyric in a song in the 1960s Rock Musical “Hair”. The full citation I want to talk you through is:

“How can people be so heartless

How can they ignore their friends

Easy to be hard

Easy to be cruel

Easy to say No

Do you only care about the bleeding crowd  ["bleeding" = "moving in a huddle"]

How about a needing friend

(I need a friend)”

Here then is material for much commentary; for much Biblical exposition. For myself the lyric goes to the heart of Christian faith and in so many ways discusses the problems we variable people have with abiding constantly in Christ and amongst his commandments.

In the first place “Commandments” is an awkward word, even though Jesus says to his hearers ‘Two Commandments I give you...’. He uses the word Commandments when he speaks thus because, I dare to suggest, he is referring backwards at this point to the Ten Commandments of Moses had from Mount Sinai?

The big differnce between The New Dispensation of Christ Jesus and The Old Dispensation of Stone Tablets – that is the Gospel vis a vis The Law – is that – the new approach is as the prophet Jeremiah hears God say to him:

“"This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

The New Covenant of Jesus Christ is one to which adherents are not commanded by law, by tablets bearing commandments; it is a spirit, a gift from God, which is manifested in the will and volition of Christians as a desire to be followers of the words and actions and Person of Christ Jesus.

In so far as this new spirit is manifested through a believer’s will and volition, it is a disposition, a response to a belief, and to a belief generated through having been touched and moved to belief by the power of Jesus in The Gospels and in the Apostolic Teachings of The Church.

The World, by which I mean that state of affairs ignorant of, or opposed to, or having rejected, or indifferent to, The Lord Jesus; The World impinges even on Christians, whose task is to live in The World and to do their best not to be, or become, part of it.

The World suffers from compromises of all kinds. It is a World of fudges and elisions, omissions and slights, makeshift and makedo, and a place which satisifes, if it satisfies anyone at all, those who accept that the best is only three quarters of the heart’s desire.

In this sense The World represents a defeat to a person who has pure and generous hopes and feelings for the people with whom and the state of existence she finds herself in; three-quarters of the solution to such a one’s deepest yearnings being as good as, as satisfactory as, having nil of them.

In this sense Christ and belief in Him is an ‘all or nothing’’ affair; so that a person’s choice or decision on Jesus Christ is that single life decision which makes all, literally all, the difference to the person, to the life, to the whole of existence.

I mean this not just in terms of one’s outlook and view of history and existence; thus as giving all things purpose and meaning and absolute significance; but also I mean it in respect of all things, material, immaterial; spiritual or secular; actually present, existent - things all. Being with and for Jesus is all the difference – there is no other choice than this – and all things follow, for better or for worse, for a person from his or her decision on this point.

A person might be ardent and outraged at the impoverisment and sickness and dearth for a third of the peoples of the world, as is, and has been throughout my lifetime, the state of The World. A person might opt for Marxism or Socialism or a Cooperative or a Communal solution to this suffering; and thus allow a set of ideas, an ideology, to be his or her allegiance. Hence one sees such situations where persons affiliate - as in the song lyric:

“Do you only care about the bleeding crowd?

How about a needing friend?”

A person becomes so entangled in the empirical secular reasons for suffering and poverty, that a person entanged will 1. begin to ‘take sides’ and 2. spend all energies on far away places and on large en bloc groups of people in distress, so that 3. at home, next door maybe, the same concerned and feeling person is oblivious to the local situation and to the persons suffering on his doorstep.

Another secular choice is to become a kind of quietist; to decide that there is nothing an individual can do to help- say - Africa, or Bangladesh – and so a person decides she will care only about the family and friends with whom she asociates around her.

A person is only able to commit to so much, to bear the burden of so much, whether local and personal or abroad and in vast impersonal doses – without having Jesus as the support and upholding Person for their life.

So to many of us we find there is no belief inside that assents for Jesus; for various reasons in our present societies and outlooks, so much conspires against a person prima facie, who might actually feel they need Jesus; and this conspiracy burdens their longing with doubts and caveats. That is the great deficit in our way of life; that makes it so that in our mores and psyches bears down deadweight which drags like an anvil tied to a leg, preventing us from the blessing and the given grace of belief in Him.

These sets of ideas and ideologies, this quietism; are that at-best three-quarters, which The World can give; which for the aching seeking soul is as good as nothing in that soul’s sense of defeat and loss – of yearning for that thing far better.

Getting people eager to read and hear me beyond the madnesses of our times and tthese times’ social and psychical preconceptions and mind roadblocks – that is one of my chief reasons for continuing to write and speak these talks – because it is wholly unnecessary for people to feel and believe there is no room for belief in Jesus; that our human knowledge and understanding has now exploded that ability to have faith. This is the untruth, the large untruth of our times, of our minds; and it is very important that the arguments which all hold water very watertightly are made which show this presumption of no faith to be a clog and superfluously artifical; not true at all.

So we have polarity – in the World – either hearts bleeding for populations far away en bloc or else people surrounding themselves with a local personal cocoon of love and affection – both efforts trying to make the best of a World which without Jesus is far from the best, far from the peace of fulfillment.

Many of the people who are among these polar opposites in fact do resonate in their hearts with the life and work of Jesus Christ; it is the Divine thing they cannot deal with; it is the stumbling block - as the Gospels use that term.

Again there are clear solid irefutable arguments to be made which allow enough space for such a contention that Jesus is Divine, The Son of God, crucified dead buried and Resurrected on the third day, as he forecasts of himself in The New Testament. Enough room and more – there are positive indicators – but I don’t want to run too far ahead for you - because the first hurdle is to make way for Jesus before he can enter into your hearts.

The solution to the polarity? – to the either/or of broad impersonal agonies for whole populations, or else a small select personal gang of loved ones? It is this:

“"This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

The New Covenant of Jesus Christ is one to which adherents are not commanded by law, by tablets bearing commandments; it is a spirit, a gift from God, which is manifested in the will and volition of Christians as a desire to be followers of the words and actions and Person of Christ Jesus.

In so far as this new spirit is manifested through a believer’s will and volition, it is a disposition, a response to a belief, and to a belief generated through having been touched and moved to belief by the power of Jesus in The Gospels and in the Apostolic Teachings of The Church.

The World, by which I mean that state of affairs ignorant of, or opposed to, or having rejected, or indifferent to, The Lord Jesus; The World impinges even on Christians, whose task is to live in The World and to do their best not to be, or become, part of it.

The World suffers from compromises of all kinds. It is a World of fudges and elisions, omissions and slights, makeshift and makedo, and a place which satisifes, if it satisfies anyone at all, those who accept that the best is only three quarters of the heart’s desire.

In this sense The World represents a defeat to a person who has pure and generous hopes and feelings for the people with whom and the state of existence she finds herself in; three-quarters of the solution to such a one’s deepest yearnings being as good as, as satisfactory as, having nil of them.

In this sense Christ and belief in Him is an ‘all or nothing’’ affair; so that a person’s choice or decision on Jesus Christ is that single life decision which makes all, literally all, the difference to the person, to the life, to the whole of existence.

I mean this not just in terms of one’s outlook and view of history and existence; thus as giving all things purpose and meaning and absolute significance; but also I mean it in respect of all things, material, immaterial; spiritual or secular; actually present, existent - things all. Being with and for Jesus is all the difference – there is no other choice than this – and all things follow, for better or for worse, for a person from his or her decision on this point.

A person might be ardent and outraged at the impoverisment and sickness and dearth for a third of the peoples of the world, as is, and has been throughout my lifetime, the state of The World. A person might opt for Marxism or Socialism or a Cooperative or a Communal solution to this suffering; and thus allow a set of ideas, an ideology, to be his or her allegiance. Hence one sees such situations where persons affiliate - as in the song lyric:

“Do you only care about the bleeding crowd?

How about a needing friend?”

A person becomes so entangled in the empirical secular reasons for suffering and poverty, that a person entanged will 1. begin to ‘take sides’ and 2. spend all energies on far away places and on large en bloc groups of people in distress, so that 3. at home, next door maybe, the same concerned and feeling person is oblivious to the local situation and to the persons suffering on his doorstep.

Another secular choice is to become a kind of quietist; to decide that there is nothing an individual can do to help- say - Africa, or Bangladesh – and so a person decides she will care only about the family and friends with whom she asociates around her.

A person is only able to commit to so much, to bear the burden of so much, whether local and personal or abroad and in vast impersonal doses – without having Jesus as the support and upholding Person for their life.

So to many of us we find there is no belief inside that assents for Jesus; for various reasons in our present societies and outlooks, so much conspires against a person prima facie, who might actually feel they need Jesus; and this conspiracy burdens their longing with doubts and caveats. That is the great deficit in our way of life; that makes it so that in our mores and psyches bears down deadweight which drags like an anvil tied to a leg, preventing us from the blessing and the given grace of belief in Him.

These sets of ideas and ideologies, this quietism; are that at-best three-quarters, which The World can give; which for the aching seeking soul is as good as nothing in that soul’s sense of defeat and loss – of yearning for that thing far better.

Getting people eager to read and hear me beyond the madnesses of our times and tthese times’ social and psychical preconceptions and mind roadblocks – that is one of my chief reasons for continuing to write and speak these talks – because it is wholly unnecessary for people to feel and believe there is no room for belief in Jesus; that our human knowledge and understanding has now exploded that ability to have faith. This is the untruth, the large untruth of our times, of our minds; and it is very important that the arguments which all hold water very watertightly are made which show this presumption of no faith to be a clog and superfluously artifical; not true at all.

So we have polarity – in the World – either hearts bleeding for populations far away en bloc or else people surrounding themselves with a local personal cocoon of love and affection – both efforts trying to make the best of a World which without Jesus is far from the best, far from the peace of fulfillment.

Many of the people who are among these polar opposites in fact do resonate in their hearts with the life and work of Jesus Christ; it is the Divine thing they cannot deal with; it is the stumbling block - as the Gospels use that term.

Again there are clear solid irefutable arguments to be made which allow enough space for such a contention that Jesus is Divine, The Son of God, crucified dead buried and Resurrected on the third day, as he forecasts of himself in The New Testament. Enough room and more – there are positive indicators – but I don’t want to run too far ahead for you - because the first hurdle is to make way for Jesus before he can enter into your hearts.

The solution to the polarity? – to the either/or of broad impersonal agonies for whole populations, or else a small select personal gang of loved ones? It is this:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”

The guy this was said to by Jesus had temerity enough to ask Jesus:

“And who is my neighbour?”

Whereupon there follows The Parable of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10.25 ff – look it up!). Jesus tells it and counters the guy with his own question:

“Which of these was neighbour to the man?”

The guy has little choice but to say correctly it was he who had compassion on him. To which Jesus answers

“Go thou and do likewise”

The simple thing is that anyone, everyone, is one’s neighbour; and no less so because they are on another continent and belong to an ethnic group or population which as a whole is under duress; no more so because they are family or friends and among your charmed circle.

There were guys sent to trap Jesus in his words who said this truthfully of him:

“...we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly:”

This phrase ‘neither acceptest thou the person of any’ is an old fashioned way of saying that Jesus took no one as being special because of their office, riches, position, rank, gender, age, experience, fame, etc etc BUT he does....

...take everyone, each as an individual, as being special to him, as being a created being in the image of God, as a living soul, as a fragile, wayward, vulnerable, wide-of-the-mark human person, and that covers all of us.

For people, Christians, to love their neighbour, the recommendation Jesus gives to us, is for each one of us to behave towards each one of us whom we encounter – in a newspaper, virtually, in the flesh, by telephone, howsoever; in the same spirit as that Samaritan on the Jericho Road behaved to that man at the wayside, who had been set upon by robbers and left for dead.

An impossible ask? Not for Jesus. Not for Jesus’s sake.