Many set themselves the aim of rescuing the indifferent and the lazy - and end up lost themselves. The flame within them gets dim with the passage of time. So, if you have the fire run, since you never know when it may be doused, leaving you stranded in the darkness. Not all of us are summoned to rescue others. "My brothers, each one of us will give an account of himself to God," says the holy Apostle. Again, he declares, "You teach someone else, but not yourself." It is as if he were saying, "I do not know about the others, but we have surely to look to what we must do ourselves." (John Climacus)

The flame does dim. But it dims in the monastery as well as in the world, in the chapel and in the streets.

It has been my relationship with others that has often restored the flame of faith. Not infrequently it has been a relationship with the spiritually indifferent and lazy that has acted as the accelerant.

The first quote above is from the 14th chapter of Romans. This is Paul's sermon on mutual toleration. The chapter opens with,

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. (Romans 14: 1-7)

I don't see how John can derive from this context encouragement to separate from the lazy and indifferent... or any of our neighbors.

His creative paraphrasing of Paul - "we have surely to look to what we must do ourselves" - strikes me as going well beyond the text he quotes for support.

The image above is The Good Samaritan by Ferdinand Hodler (late 19th Century)