Introduction
Whether our concerns are about generosity to ‘incomers’ and ‘home-grown’ casualties of the economic system, or finding ways to resist violence in the world, or attempts to erase the distinctions between friend and stranger in our own communities, the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount challenge widely held assumptions.
Context
Far from aspiring to the imperative of Matthew 5.42 – ‘Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you’ – popular press coverage derides generous impulses from the rich, accuses society of misapplying national resources, and denies the reality of desperate fear.
The cover story of the Observer Magazine offers an uncomfortably appealing account of a thirst for revenge which is far from the vision of Matthew 5.39 – ‘Do not resist an evildoer. But if one strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also’.
Inter-community relations in the UK seem poor.
Germany’s refugee experience warns against simplistic thinking. Refugees provoke reactions. The internet can spread and amplify resentment until other innocents are endangered. With resentment, aid is questioned; even though television and the internet continue to show us ruined lives in Syria and famine in the world’s poorest nations.
Reflection
One website claiming to promote Christian views suggests that our imperative is not to fight Islamist terror but to protect our country’s prosperity by invoking, though prayer, a divine protection earned through restricting inclusivity in our national life.
Does ‘not resisting’ an evildoer (Matthew 5.39) justify shifting responsibility for armed resistance to those closest to the evil, if they have less tender consciences – be they today’s Yazidis, or the non-pacifist Presbyterian frontiersmen of historic Quaker Pennsylvania in the Indian Wars?
Should we simply assert the superiority of our faith over that of the Yazidi interviewee in the Observer article who sees revenge for extreme ISIS violence against her community as honourable? Who then would be included as our loved ‘neighbours’?
How can we love all ‘neighbours’ equally at once? It might be argued that taking aggressive measures to protect one’s own, whether from violence or economic disadvantage, is in keeping with Leviticus’ concern for peace and security within, if not Gospel standards of outward-looking generosity (Matthew 5.42). But in Mexico, US measures have created fear and turbulence; in France anti-terror policies have sparked rioting; and American hostility to migrants has caused concern and suffering on the Canadian border.
If our love for neighbours, near and far, even for those who seem to hate us and our way of life, is not to stand helpless in the face of genocide, dithering before thousands fleeing from war, and divided contemplating the divergent needs of both our nearest and dearest and our more distant neighbours, then we need to find some firm ground. Can we find that, perhaps, in the injunction to be ‘perfect’ (Matthew 5.48), completed, whole?
When we look at the responses of our press, our government, our own local communities, are they truly satisfying at our emotional core? Are they in tune with the kingdom Christ foreshadowed? Perhaps only when they are, will our community come close to modelling Christian love.
Prayer
A meditation on the ‘way of love’ in a shaken world.
Lord, is all this uncertainty meant to be good for us? Were we complacent and faithless when we thought there was a consensus in the civilised world, with the millennium goals showing agreement about things such as the need to end poverty, and the need to address climate change? We seemed to have established a series of practical steps and to be making progress. Are you asking us to be more aware of our limits, more willing to put trust in you and your good purposes?
It is difficult, Lord, because all those things looked like ways of doing your will, ways of showing your love, for the poor, and the dispossessed, and the suffering in our world. But now everything is contested. Things that sometimes sound like anathema to us, that involve distrusting and disparaging people of other faiths and other nations, or that involve hurt for the weakest and least well-represented in our communities…such things are represented as being patriotic, or respecting the will of the majority in a democratic society.
Keep us faithful, Lord, but keep us hopeful too. We are tempted to despair when we see values which seem so far from those of your kingdom touted and triumphant in so many diverse places, and by so many powerful people. Lead us through the wilderness safely, until we begin to see again ways in which your kingdom may come on this earth as well as in heaven.
Amen.
Questions
- Where does your community stand on admitting more refugees, especially child refugees?
- Are some local communities being unfairly burdened, or are such views disguised selfishness?
Action
With Syria now almost out of the news, remind yourself of the continuing suffering by visiting the Amnesty UK website, or a similar one.
Young people
Are the internet and social media helpful or a hindrance in thinking about who our neighbours might be, and whether we are treating them with love? How best might we use these tools?
Brenda Vance is a URC elder and retired university teacher living in Sussex.
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