Who Is My Neighbor?. Samira Izadi Page

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ never talked about her faith or God’s work in her life with Muslims because she wanted to respect their belief. I believe her intentions were good. But, as someone with many family members who are Muslim, I could not help but interpret the comment as offensive to the dignity of Muslims as people created in God’s image. What I heard was that she was making the decision for her Muslim friends that they did not need to hear her story of God’s work. I heard that her Muslim friends did not have the ability to discern, to be led by God and to make a choice; she made the decision for them. What I heard was a colonialist attitude that said, “I know better than you and I choose for you,” rather than sharing from her heart within the context of genuine friendship and love, then allowing her Muslim friends to choose. Jesus calls us to treat others with respect and dignity even when they may not receive what God has for them.

      This principle is true, not only in regard to spiritual matters but also practical ones. Inside my ministry, Gateway of Grace, we serve refugees from various countries and different religious backgrounds. We see spiritual realities within communities and individuals whom we serve. As people with dignity, they choose whether or how deeply to engage with our staff and volunteers. Perhaps the most important lesson about our neighbor is that our neighbor is the person or persons with dignity who are free to make choices, and sometimes that choice means rejecting us, our help, and yes, even our love. We are not their savior. And we are not the Holy Spirit who brings convictions of the heart to matters of truth. This is a difficult truth to contend with as, most often, those of us with compassionate hearts want to fix everyone we meet. Sometimes our neighbors simply do not want to be fixed.

      Early in my ministry with refugees, I was overeager to tell our refugee friends everything I knew about how to do things here in the United States. Little by little, I learned that some of them wanted to experience and learn about life in America on their own terms. It often costs them deeply, but it is their choice. It breaks my heart to see our refugee families in trouble. I know that if they had just listened to what I shared with them, they would not be going through such difficult times. But I have come to accept that my “neighbor” is with all their gifts, graces, good-heartedness, and sins, as any other human being. I must honor that.

      Several years ago, I met a persecuted Christian family from Iran. Their circumstances forced them to flee to Turkey, where they lived for a few years waiting on their refugee cases to be processed. The family had a son who suffered from diabetes. I met the family as soon as they arrived in the United States. As it turned out, we were from the same hometown in Iran, so it was a very sweet meeting. Gateway of Grace began serving the family and the nineteen-year-old son. We helped him get a job at a restaurant. He had to be at work very early in the morning. His commute was about ninety minutes, changing a few trains in the dark hours of the morning. I was concerned about him. Although he was a smart person and a hard worker, he had limited English and even less understanding about what it took to thrive in the United States. We raised money through the ministry and purchased a car for him. He was overjoyed. We asked him to continue at his job that had potential for promotion, and to keep preparing to attend college. The car was a tool that empowered him to do both at the same time.

      After a few months, he met other young Iranians who influenced him in unproductive ways. He quit his job, borrowed money to buy and sell cars, lost money on a car, and quit college. Six years later, he does not have a stable job and has not finished college. Early on, we met with him and counseled him, but we realized that, regardless of the wisdom we shared, he was going to make his own decisions about life. It was painful to watch him inflict wound after wound upon his life. We continue to pray for him, and are committed to providing the same wise counsel should he want it.

       A Loaded Response

      Jesus’s parable provides a profound response to the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus was intentional about saying, “A man was going down from Jericho.” He didn’t identify whether he was an Israelite, a good person, a family man, an adulterer, religiously observant, or an unbeliever. The man could have been anyone for the sake of neighborliness, it did not matter. He then identified those passing by the man, which included a Levite, a priest, and a Samaritan. Religiously, the Levite and the priest were held in the highest regard and the Samaritan was the lowest; the Samaritan was the outcast. The Levite and the priest claimed righteousness, were faithful to religious practices, prayed publicly, performed the sacrificial ceremonies, and attended synagogue regularly. Jesus finished telling the parable and asked. “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

      Notice the response of the lawyer. He was not able to bring himself to say that the Samaritan was the neighbor, a demonstration of the disregard the lawyer had for the Samaritan. Instead he said, “The one who showed him mercy” (Luke 10:37). Jesus told the lawyer to go and do as the Samaritan had done, which was a slap in the face of the religious authorities who considered themselves holy and righteous. Jesus said it was better to be a Samaritan who was a neighbor than a priest or a Levite who was not. Can you imagine how shocking these words of Jesus must have been? Jesus turned things upside down.

       No More Scapegoating

      Looking for a scapegoat is a natural part of our sinful psychological makeup. As a matter of fact, psychologists have determined that almost as soon as children can express themselves verbally, they know how to pass the blame. The behavior follows us into adulthood. The motivations for scapegoating are basically the same for adults as they for children: we do not want to feel the guilt of our sin, acknowledge responsibility, or deal with consequences of actions or inactions. Neither is scapegoating a contemporary problem only. From the first family to our family, we find people who choose the convenience of passing on the blame. Of course, what we call scapegoating has biblical roots that at its core had quite a different origin from how it is used in societies today. Let us examine Leviticus 16:7–10 (NIV):

      Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.

      The last part of the passage about sending the goat into the wilderness is particularly significant because we, in our daily lives, go through the same process. While God’s scapegoat had a holy purpose, ours is selfish.

      We usually do not think about how our scapegoating impacts others. Instead of asking how he could serve the neighbor, the lawyer asked Jesus what qualifications one should have in order to be considered a neighbor. In other words, the lawyer’s question was intended to find reasons that would disqualify people from being served. Jesus, knowing the heart of the lawyer and the motive for his question, pointed out that neighborliness was not about who “those people” were, but who we are. As Christians, our lives must be marked by attitudes and actions that demonstrate the presence of God. We know and embrace the command to love God, but when loving God moves into the realm of loving our neighbor, we become like the lawyer in the story and look for disqualifying reasons to care for someone.

      I am a frequent speaker at churches, where I share my testimony of coming to faith and creating a ministry that mobilizes the Church to reach refugees. I am often given a question-and-answer time at the end. It is rare to finish a question-and-answer session without at least one or two questions that are similar to the question the lawyer asked Jesus, aiming to disqualify someone as a neighbor. Remember, Jesus sets no qualification for who our neighbor is. Anyone can be a neighbor. God provides the example of how to love our neighbor. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

      Take a moment for self-examination. Do you ever or often try to qualify people in order to be neighborly to them? In what ways do you find a scapegoat when it comes to loving your СКАЧАТЬ