As we fast approach
the Christmas season, we have to pause a moment to remember exactly what it is
that we are celebrating. The birth of a
child in a foreign land, whose parents were refugees fleeing persecution. Shown compassion by an innkeeper, that child
grew up to be a human being who embodied compassion. He became the model for how to let the light
of divinity shine through us.
When I travel in old
Cairo in Egypt, which is where I shall be in less than a week, I hope to visit
the Saints Sergius and Bacchus Coptic Church again, which is said to be built
upon the site where the Holy family hid themselves and rested during the Flight
into Egypt as they escaped Herod.
So I am finding
myself struggling to accept the assertion of many theoretically Christian
politicians who suggest that the refugees from Syria – a people who are
escaping the very terrorism that we are witnessing in the Middle East, Lebanon
and Paris—should just go home. Obviously
that is not a Christian sentiment if we recall the life of Jesus the Christ.
This is pure and
simple a problem with xenophobia. A
phobia of course is an irrational fear—like arachnophobia (fear of spiders), or
claustrophobia (fear of being in enclosed spaces). Xenophobia is the fear of strangers. And given the psychic fallout from two world
wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and on and on back to the edges of
history, xenophobia is a well-rooted fear, and by that we can infer lower
chakra needs based on survival of the species, the family, the homeland.
It goes back as far
as the Israelites being kicked out of every country they entered, and are still
to this day fighting to live in a homeland that is homesteaded, having
previously belonged to the Palestinians.
We could go into a long dissertation on global xenophobia.
My point here is that
it is this.
We are not engaged in
some holy war. It is not us against
them. Whatever or whomever them may be: Christians against Muslims,
or Sunni against Shia, or liberals against conservatives. What we truly are working to combat is the
mistrust of our fellow man that shows itself as fundamental extremism on either
side. Going Rogue, which is the title of
one book by a Christian fundamentalist politician, is not the answer. Going rogue implies extreme individualism
that refuses to take into account that not all people can be defined by the
groups to which they belong. Not all Muslim people are jihadists and not all
Christians are xenophobic.
As a Muslim man
condemning the Paris attacks has said on Facebook: Terrorism has no
religion. Others quoted the Quran 5:32
Whoever kills an innocent person, it is as if he kills all of humanity.
What we witnessed in
Paris, horrendous as it was and is, is not, as Jeb Bush said, “an organized
attempt to destroy Western civilization.”
No. It is an organized attempt to sow panic and fear--and it has done
that pretty well, unfortunately. The murder of random people in random places
throughout Paris, or before that Lebanon, is a means of stirring up xenophobia.
If you fear us, the members of the Islamic State seem to say, then we are the terrorist
rogues who win. But to my mind the
biggest threat to our society is not Islam.
The biggest danger
that faces us is the belief that we have to fight terrorists by committing similar acts of violence and
terror. Military intervention being one
of these avenues. Another might be
closing our borders, shutting the doors in the faces of those who need our
help.
Certainly that was
not the intention when in 1885 Emma Lazarus gave us the words carved into the
Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning
to breath free…”
This is what our
nation stands for. We opened our arms to
Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine. We opened our borders to those
Swedes who needed a land in which to live, and to many who have crossed the
waters to America escaping war, famine, destitution, subjection, religious
persecution. Let’s face it, nearly all of us whose ancestry arrived on these
shores by boat are descendent from the suffering of immigrants.
I am reminded again
of that pregnant woman on the burro seeking shelter when the life of her child
was threatened. I am reminded of Mary’s
stalwart husband, Joseph, who continued to knock on doors, walking mile after
mile into the desert as door after door was shut in his face. And again similar images flash before my eyes
of the terrified women, men and children in their dinghies landing on the
shores of Lesbos trying to pass through to some place that will take them in
and feed them. By and large, these are victims—not Syrian terrorists.
And if you are
fleeing a war-torn country, not being allowed a shelter somewhere, facing
vehement aggressive protests inflicts yet another level on terror upon an
already terrorized people. What these
acts of terrorism intend to do is to inspire yet more wrong-headed responses by
people and governments.
So really the
question is this: How do we as spiritualized beings respond to such terrors?
We must respond with
compassion and love. As 1st John: 4:18 tells us: “Perfect love
drives out fear.” By this we understand
that the opposite of Love is not hatred. The opposite of Love is Fear. A response to this crisis of closing borders,
sending troops on the ground is a response that springs forth from Fear, which
is what the terrorists want. An appropriate response must be true love with
compassion. And how do we do that?
First we pray. We
pray for clarity of vision. We pray for peace for Muslims and Christians and
Buddhist and pagans, for all people everywhere.
We pray for those families who are hurting. We pray for our
enemies. Matthew 5:34—Pray for your
enemies and those who persecute you. That isn’t an easy thing to do, but it is
a necessary thing. It is what people of peace do.
Secondly, we offer
our compassion to those who are hurting. We weep with those who weep. When the events of 9-11 unfolded on US soil
15 years ago, the French government cried with us in anguish, saying: “We are all Americans now.” And now we cry out with the French citizenry,
“We are all Parisians now.” In truth, we
are becoming more and more citizens of a world that mourns in unison, and
rebuilds in unison and goes on believing that Love again will prevail.
And next, we also
must offer forgiveness to those who have hurt others. Matthew 7:1-2 tells
us:” Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you
will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
Martin
Luther King, Jr.—no stranger to persecution and personal violent threat, offers
this profound guidance for living through such crises as these. He says. We
must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the
power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the
worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less
prone to hate our enemies.”
In
that light it is important to look within ourselves and try to find those
moments when we have been more frightened than loving, more angry than loving,
and try to counter that love with compassion, forgiveness and the determination
to “do what is right.”
This is a difficult
thing to do, but a uniquely powerful thing to do. We know this power exhibited
in the words of our Master Teacher, Jesus Christ. Beaten and impaled by a
sword, hanging on the cross yet his words we recall as the most compassionate
plea ever uttered. Father forgive them for they know not what they do. – Luke:
23-34
Just as there are
things to do: Pray. And Love Our Neighbors, all of them, as ourselves—there are
also things we should not do.
1. We should not
hate. We see evil and we want to draw swords to fight it, but as Martin Luther
King Jr. said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” We cannot reach out in
compassion to some and hate others at the same time. We invoke God into our
hearts that we like all who suffer may heal.
2. We should not take
our anger out on the refugees of any country immigrants are not the enemy. They
are a 21st century version of our grandparents, great grandparents
and those before us. And like us, they want to live and protect their families,
as we would.
3. We should protest
any calls to war with Islam. Interfaith
and multi-faith understanding is called for here. Even Muslims honor Jesus as the
way-shower, prophet and elder brother.
How can that be against any Christian ideal? Nearly all of the Muslims
that I know in Egypt will say that these terrorists do not represent them,
their families, or their religious and political views.
This is not a time
where we should give in to fear. Rather
it is a time to unite, a time to honor the humanity of every person. By not doing so, we play into the
expectations of those who terrorize the world.
Rather than separate
ourselves from the religion of Islam, or from the things which we do not
understand, or frighten us; we need to cultivate an understanding between all
people. All people of all faiths, should invoke the divine into their hearts,
and into their understanding. No
religion has a patent on divine love.
God is like breath. It is everywhere around us, within us, enlivening
us. As has been said. In 1 John 4:12No one has ever seen God; but if we love
one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
I ask you to pray
that Love conquer Fear, that Compassion reign, and that All People move
together in the one divine body of God.
