In an increasingly global world, we continue to have our understanding changed. When the drought plaguing the southeastern United States causes the city of Atlanta to develop a water usage plan, there is outcry from neighboring cities and states downstream, demanding that their voices be heard. This is their water too.
When we buy food from our local grocer, we are not just paying her bills, but we are putting bread on the table of the truck driver who brought it in, the distribution plant workers, we even contribute in a tiny way to the farmer in New Zealand who grew our apples and kiwi.
So who is our neighbor? How am I to love my neighbor as myself? Do neighbors speak hte same language? Are they members of the same ethnic group? I live in Washington state. Can I have neighbors across the Canadian border? Across the Pacific ocean? Across the planet?
So what makes an enemy? If someone wrongs me? Okay, my sister wrongs me, is she my enemy? No, I forgive her. My neighbor downstairs smokes pot with his windows open, forcing me to either get buzzed, or close my windows. Should I go to war with him? I don't think so, he's my neighbor. I disagree with his choices. They even limit my choice, they infringe on my rights, they can even damage my body. What should I do?
Okay, so you get the idea. We forgive our neighbors and bomb our enemies. But what makes someone an enemy instead of a neighbor?
Neighbors wrong us and get forgiven, so why when someone I don't know--someone I don't have a face and voice and story for--why when they wrong me, do I get angry and say, "No, I will not forgive them!"?
I think it is just that--I don't know their face. If I did, I wouldn't blow them up.
I just recently heard a story about the Catholic priest who blessed the plane that carried the bomb over Nagasaki in WWII. He talks about the number of Catholic children in Japan who were killed, the number of Catholic clergy, how many orders of nuns were killed in the genocide that took place. He asks why he didn't think of them. If he had been thinking of them, would he have blessed the mission?
How do we as Christians, believing that all humans are created in the image of God, endorse political systems and parties that are committed to killing other human beings? What makes the life of a man in Afghanistan less valuable than the life of a man in Seattle?
I say, nothing.
We are neighbors. What do national lines, religious affiliations, language, color, ideologies, citizenship, economic value, or geography have to do with defining who my neighbor is? Nothing.
I, next to any other human being on the planet, no matter how good or evil, am confronted in their face, with the face of God.
As a Christian I am called to something higher than the pursuit of national security. Moreover I am called to something higher than personal security. I am called to reconciliation. I am called to extend the welcoming, redemptive, and restorative love of God to all humanity. How do I do this immense task? With one person at a time.
I do this with my neighbor, the one downstairs who smokes pot, and the one across the world who believes I should die.
I am first a child of God, any alliance with country that asks me to be anything that would contradict this first calling must be abandoned. I see no other path for one who claims to follow Jesus Christ.
Peace,
Daniel
