Seeking New Heights

Readings: Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Psalm 119:137-144; Isaiah 1:10-18; Psalm 32:1-7;  2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12;  Luke 19:1-10

Living in faith sometimes means confronting grey areas. It is not always so obvious what we should do as Christians; the connections between believing and acting are not always easy to discern. Our readings this week frequently encourage a useful technique for coming closer to determining the “right,” or godly, things to do: start by modifying your perspective.


Being a person who believes in God is a journey with an imperfect guidebook. Throughout scripture, we learn that adhering to the recommendations we find on the page alone is an erroneous move. There’s comfort to believing responses to all situations are pre-defined, but acting without thinking is never sufficient. This is why we find, in books like Isaiah, condemnations of mere “legalism.”

In this book, the prophet confronts the people of Israel, all of whom face tremendous political strains, and encourages them away from acting emptily and hoping for a gracious divine response. There is some suggestion that many of them have been compelled to act frenetically in accordance with what they think God demands, but have forgotten to infuse their actions with true faith. They offer sacrifices by the many; they rigorously observe festival dates; they bombard God with proper “action,” but forget that all of these dictates were given as an expression of love. The prophet channels God, who scoffs: “what care I for the number of your sacrifices?...new moon and Sabbath, calling of assemblies, octaves of wickedness, these I cannot bear…they weigh me down, I tire of the load” (Isaiah 1:14, 13).

The lesson, simply, is that the people cannot perform “acts” of faith in any perfunctory way. If they’ve been living out the laws which undergird the covenants, but without feeling or internalizing them, all they’ve done is ultimately empty. God’s love and allegiance isn’t warranted by automatons; the law must be lived, its precepts met with joy. For what God commands, from Sabbaths, to festivals, to the treatment of one’s neighbors, is all centered in his love for humanity. None of it can be done without a willing spirit; a Sabbath observed without graciousness is not observed at all, even if “rules” are perfectly followed.

And so we read, again at again, that God’s love is available; that it cannot be earned, but must be humbly accepted. And how is this done? Isaiah suggests that simply the admission of sin leads to its receipt: “though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow,” if only one learns “to do good, make[s] justice [their] aim: redress[ing] the wronged, hear[ing] the orphan’s plea, defend[ing] the widow” (Isaiah 1:18, 17). The 613 laws of the Hebrew Bible were designed to so orient people: if they’re internalized, and lived out with love, such behavior will become intuitive. This goes far beyond the trade model—“my dutiful behavior for your glorious reward”—that Isaiah suggests people were actually living out. The model which, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re frequently tempted to adopt today.

We must not “forget God’s precepts,” the psalmist says, for the true servant knows that all edicts of God are “promises” proven “by fire,” promises which are “forever just” in basis, and lead to living fully (Psalm 119:141, 140, 144). Ignoring the spirit of God’s commands, and attempting to adopt them hollowly without troubling their meaning, is akin to singing them silently—the worshipful praise they should represent goes unvoiced. “Responding” to them like that leads to an atrophying of spirit: “as long as I kept silent, my bones wasted away; I groaned all the day…my strength withered in the dry summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4).

Each reading proposes such a simple solution: shift your perspective. If you’re living dutifully but seeing no results, rethink what duty means. Our duties to the scriptures are NOT simple. Articulating “love thy neighbor” in appropriate situations is not sufficient; we have to articulate it in our deeds, to live it out, to do the actual work of engaging intimately our fellow humans. Saying that justice should be done is not enough; we have to work on justice’s behalf. Decrying situations which leave some in poverty, or sick, or at the margins is not sufficient; we must literally bring the afflicted in, and love them back to health. The scriptures assure us, after all, that it’s not just their health at stake: as long as one person is forgotten or rejected, the community is not whole.

In the gospel reading, this perspective shift is a literal one. Zacchaeus, a “chief tax collector and also a wealthy man,” is in town one day as Jesus is passing through (Luke 19:2). He’s deeply curious to find out who Jesus is, but is humble in stature, and can’t glimpse him above the crowd. And so he has the brilliant inspiration to climb a tree and get a better view—he’s determined to discover Jesus for himself, despite the din, despite all of the swarms of people who are, unlike him, so certain they can already answer the question of who Jesus is.

Jesus sees, and rewards, this act of faithful curiosity. Zacchaeus is called down from the tree and Jesus comes to stay with him for the night. This man—this sinner, this tax collector, this rich gentlemen among so many poor—is so inspired by what he learns of Jesus that he “sa[ys] to the Lord, ‘behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over’” (Luke 19:8). His whole life, his whole internal perspective, changes, and all as a result of the one moment of inspiration that led him to seek Jesus above the crowd, to see him clearly and for himself.

This week’s readings encourage us to consider how we are like Zacchaeus, or like those who burdened God with empty burnt offerings, perfunctory petitions without heart behind them. Do we know what is necessary for our own salvation? Are we absolutely sure? Or might we dare to climb to some vantage point beyond the crowd, with all of its various recommendations, and see if we can’t determine that for ourselves?

It’s possible that, even after gazing from a different viewpoint, we’ll discover that what we always thought we knew of Jesus is true. In such a case, no risk is involved, and we even may find our relationship with God, and our confidence in that relationship, deepening. But it’s also possible that our relationships to God and his word could always benefit from considering new perspectives. If we take time to think about how much is said of Jesus these days, and how much is built upon those assumptions, it’s only healthy to question how much of it strikes us as true, or is relevant to our own lives in faith.

Maybe, for a day or two, we can dare to forget the crowds. Maybe we can push aside the innumerable declarations of others concerning what Jesus would do in this situation, or that. Maybe we can approach such questions independently, and with the humility the scriptures encourage. We’re justified by faith, but we remain sinners; we love who God is, but we can always stand to learn more about Him. And we do that, first, by admitting our shortcomings, as did David in the Psalms: “I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord,’ and you took away the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:5). We do that by admitting that our ability to see is necessarily limited if we’re standing amidst crowds of people who are all certain they can see perfectly. We do that by asking God, and God alone, to fill in the blanks, the spaces in our hearts and minds where questions still exist, where the formulas in place don’t seem to go far enough. We can seek our own sycamore trees; we can climb to the tops of them, and we can wait in happy expectation, knowing that “the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint” (Habakkuk 2:3).

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Raindrops Keep Falling...

Readings: Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65; Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22; Sirach 35:12-17; Psalm 84:1-7;  2Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18;  Luke 18:9-14

A mere week ago, the city was awash. Rain fell in torrents, ceaselessly, for days, coupled with a merciless wind which wreaked havoc on umbrellas, so that not even that flimsy respite could be offered. Among the people I know, most of us confronted this seasonal tempermentality grimly, determined only to endure it. We were tolerant at best, and at our worst moments, were reduced by it to bundles of nerves. I would venture to guess that had anyone proposed we respond to this weather with gratitude, most of us would have responded with incredulity. Gratitude? For what? Isn’t a rainy day pure misery?


Yet this week’s texts remind us that there are immemorial qualities about our world which, though we’re inclined to either take them for granted or resent them, were once held as proof positive not only that God existed, but that he loved us dearly. Rain is one of these. In the context of arid Israel, bounded by deserts and at the mercy of the skies for the cultivation of the land, rain was a blessing.

God’s love is repeatedly explained in terms of the gift of water: in Psalms, believers find refuge in God, and this manifests itself in “springs of water to drink,” as “from pools the Lord provides water for those who lose their way” (Psalm 84:6, 7). The imagery here suggests a separation between spiritual yearning, which is akin to wandering, and divine shelter, which is as an oasis among the chaos and inconsistencies of the broader world: the faithful can retreat, draw deeply from God’s spiritual wells, and so sustain themselves. In the Ancient Near East, this must have served as a very powerful metaphor.

But it is rain image is the most persistent throughout these passages—the sudden gift from the heavens of water upon the people. Rain is how God nurtures the land, and thus the people of Israel: “with showers [God] keep[s] the ground soft, blessing its young sprouts,” until God’s paths “drip with fruitful rain” and “the untilled meadows also drip; the hills are robed with joy” (Psalm 65: 11, 12, 13). Psalms suggests that this living, fluid, abundant joy is responded to be people everywhere as a marvel, and as an indication of great blessing.

Joel, too, rejoices over the gift of rain: “rejoice in the LORD, your God!...he has made the rain come down before you, the early and the late rain as before” (Joel 3:23). This foreshadows abundance in the land; moreover, it’s a wonder which asserts God’s presence in the land, and the depth of his special concern for it.

And when Jeremiah fears that the Lord has rejected Israel, it’s the lack of rain which stands as evidence: “Judah mourns, her gates are lifeless; her people sink down in mourning [and] cry in anguish…they find no water…there is no rain in the land….[and the people] cover their heads” (Jeremiah 14:2, 4). In Joel, God’s presence was attested by the presence of water; in Jeremiah, when there is drought, the LORD is missed in the land, and seems a stranger to it.

The people of Israel, it seems, are a thirsty people; but the desire they feel is not merely for the material sustenance which water provides. Indeed, they are a people who thirst for God’s presence; their own bodily well being, and the physical well being of the land, becomes tantamount to an expression of the covenant’s well-being, so that spiritual health is tied up in the health of the earth. Literally, they are a people whose eyes are ever turned skyward, waiting; but this directionality evokes the Temple, and the literal presence of God, on high as much as it anticipates the actual gifts from the sky. They thirst for God’s love, and rejoice in any manifestation of it, and water becomes a significant trope. Quench our desire, they beg; as much as the cultivation of the fields and of their beasts, what God offers to quench that thirst will lead to a deepening, and a continuation, of the relationship of God to the people.

Perhaps these readings are a reminder, to us, to look skyward, or, more specifically, to look to God to fill us where we remain in want. We’re lucky in that our blessings abound; what was scarce to the Israelites is not to us. But this is also a potential trap, because when such necessities are readily available to us, we forget to receive them as gifts. Rain becomes a nuisance, and not a promise that we’ll eat well in coming months; and why seek a distant oasis when we can flick a wrist and turn on a faucet? But if we wish to cultivate the same kind of intimate relationship with God which he shared with the people of Israel, we cannot receive things so easily. What the earth gives us remains a gift; we should try to remember, at least in scattered moments, to shelve our grumblings and turn our faces to the rain, and offer the same kind of thanks, with the same sort of joy, which we see in Joel and the Psalms.

The temptations are great to continue to take things for granted; after all, it’s so easy to do. But it’s dangerous to stock, and zealously count, our blessings as though we always warrant them. God’s generosity deserves gracious receipt.

Our chapter in Luke this week reminds us that gratitude is, in fact, necessary. We can brush aside blessings impatiently, or refuse to acknowledge them as such; we can sap up greedily that which is scarce for our neighbors, and never think twice about it. But then we defy Jesus’s parable, and become like the errant Pharisee, the fool whose prayer to God runs “’O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous’” (Luke 18:11). This preening ‘prayer’ has no value in God’s Temple, for it is built on the absurd premise that any of us can claim separation from, or innate superiority to, the rest. Jesus warns that all who so “exalt themselves will be humbled” (Luke 18: 14).

Yet a hopeful alternative exists, here in the figure of the tax collector. He won’t “even raise his eyes to heaven,” won’t even look for the blessings which God bestows, but instead humbles himself and prays, “’O God, be merciful to me, a sinner’” (Luke 18:13). The gospel tells us that it is he who will be exalted. He confronts a human condition: that he is somewhat “unworthy” of God, as a sinner, as we all are. But because he expects no reward for this, he’s better positioned to receive any gift God sends earthward. By being humble, by not expecting, we prepare ourselves internally for joy.

I suspect that, unlike the tax collector, we do need to presume to raise our eyes a bit, if only because we’ve gotten used to ignoring the source of our blessings. He knew what we forget: that what happens here proceeds from Heaven, and that thanks for the gifts which we sometimes thoughtlessly store needs to be directed there. We have to engage in actively remembering that gifts are gifts, even before we begin the work of receiving them humbly. It’s a great task in our busy lives, but undoubtedly, a valuable one. If we now and again dare to cast aside our umbrellas, and all other tools which enable us to avoid feeling God’s gifts, and thinking about his graciousness, perhaps we can move toward living in the continual joy exemplified in these chapters of Scripture.


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Wrestling Doubt

Readings: Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

The two most prominent characters in this week’s readings are Jacob and the persistent widow. Both face unsettling situations and yet respond to them, with some variations in style, with faith.


This particular chapter of Jacob’s story is one of the most puzzled over passages in Genesis, if not the Hebrew Bible. Jacob, journeying home to rejoin the brother he betrayed, encamps overnight with his family. Seemingly out of the blue, he gets up in the night and begins wrestling with either an angel, or a ‘man of God’. The figure is mysterious; some have suggested that this enigmatic holy man may have been God personified. Jacob is injured, but persists, and at the end of the encounter is renamed “Israel,” for he’s “contended with divine and human beings and has prevailed.” (Genesis 33:29)

This story almost requires individual interpretation. Is the wrestling a metaphor, or is Jacob supposed to have actually physically wrestled with some divine being? If the wrestling is literal, with whom, and why does it begin? If metaphorical: is the struggle internal, and what is Jacob, all wrapped up in human impulse and flaw, wrestling against which is more ‘divine’?

In conjunction with the other readings for the week, and keeping in mind that it’s so difficult to know which interpretation is “better,” it may be interesting to consider the struggle as a metaphor. In the chapters which precede this week’s Genesis reading, Jacob had been engaged in a bit of brotherly competition with Esau. Perhaps this is to put it lightly: Jacob, from a young age, continually defied and tricked his twin, cheating him out of his land, swindling him out of his birthright, until, eventually, the tension became so great that he had to flee. Jacob is now returning to his home, at tremendous risk of being welcomed not quite warmly. Esau has sent word that he’ll ride out to meet Jacob and his party with four hundred men; were Jacob to receive his “just deserts,” this could, in fact, be the end.

Jacob comforts himself with reminders of God’s promises: “’You told me, oh LORD, ‘go back to the land of your birth, and I will be good to you.’’” (Genesis 32:10) Jacob recognizes that he hasn’t always warranted such generous treatment—he says, in fact, in prayer: “I am unworthy of all of the acts of kindness that you have loyally performed for me.” (Genesis 32:11) And yet he anticipates one more act of kindness: that God will help him to cross back into the land promised as his, safely and with all of his new family.

It’s in the night following these prayers that Jacob struggles with the angel. He’s to meet his brother, and all of his brother’s assembled men, in the morning; he’s hoping that the meeting will go well, for his own sake, and for his family’s. Odds are against him. There’s no reason to believe that it will go well for him, especially if all details are left up to only Esau’s sense of justice. In the quiet of the night, he waits. And somehow meets, and struggles with, either an angel or God.

The result of Jacob’s struggle is that he prevails, and is renamed. His renaming essentially reinforces God’s promises to him, ensures that he and his family will be able to enter the land safely and live there until they are “as numerous as the stars.” It reinforces God’s covenant, or reaffirms it. But if the struggle is metaphorical, perhaps the real affirmation is that, despite Jacob’s flaws and lack of obvious worth, the covenant had always been available, and God was always true to it. Jacob had to struggle toward that realization. He had to prevail against all of his self-doubts and ready himself to receive that grace. He had to, in short, trust enough in God to persist, despite odds.

The parable of the persistent widow is similar, although she’s able to “prevail” in her struggle with less self-doubt: the judgment she anticipates is a just one (Luke 18:5). She lives in a town which is presided over by a judge who “neither fear[s] God nor respect[s] any other human being,” and as such, would be the perfect person to test the strength of any sort of covenantal promises passed between God and man. God promises justice, but how does justice work if the system which is supposed to exact it is presided over by those who neither respects heavenly precepts, nor care much for the well-being of individuals? There is reason for the widow to despair. This judge could be the exception to the absolute rule of God’s fairness; he could defy it by refusing to be moved by the persuasiveness of good.

In the end, in fact, he is ‘immovable’, at least in such terms. It’s not fear for his own integrity that sways him; it’s not insecurity before God, and the realities of eternity. In fact, he only bends and renders a just verdict because, inexplicably, he fears the persistent widow—he worries that she “will finally come and strike” him (Luke 18:6).

But Jesus tells us that there’s more to this fear than meets the eye. It’s not that the widow is a particularly fearsome figure. Likely, this wronged woman obsessed with justice is more of a curiosity in such a town than a threat. I imagine a woman of unimposing stature, an earnest and vulnerable person who it would be, very realistically, easy for a heartless, powerful man to dismiss. And yet he cannot. She haunts him, in faith, follows him about seeking the justice that her trust in God tells her must come (Luke 18:7).

Jesus hints to us that it’s not the widow herself who eventually moves the judge to render justice. Rather, it’s God backing her. It’s God who answers her prayers and compels her to persist, filling her with the confidence to continue. It’s God’s work on her behalf that “secure[s] the rights of [those] who call out to him day and night”, God who sees “to it that justice is done” (Luke 18:7, 8). It does not matter that the cruel judge thinks he does not believe in God; this does not negate God’s power over him. It does not matter that the widow is not obviously intimidating; that she represents justice, and that she’s backed by a just God, is what makes her imposing.

In these chapters, God promises that those who have faith will be blessed. Sometimes it’s not obvious why such people are blessed, as with Jacob; sometimes it’s quite clear that they “warrant” it. But the real message of the week’s readings is that we never really warrant God’s love, which is so great that it’s beyond human pursuit. It’s a powerful and moving force that works almost against logic. God gives his love freely and always; not because human beings ever particularly deserve it, but because he’s promised to do so, and is true to his promises.

Our readings teach us that the answers to all misgivings and tribulations lie in the promises God has already made. Even when we think that there’s no reason that it should, help comes from God, “the maker of heaven and earth,” who won’t allow for things to become truly impossible, or impassable (Psalm 121:2-3). God does not sleep; he always guards his beloved creations, affecting and protecting them silently, sometimes so silently that they miss evidence of it (as with the unjust judge).

These are not injunctions against any pain: it is certain that neither the widow, nor Jacob, lived the rest of their lives completely pain or hardship free. It’s only a promise that God is there, if we seek him. And if God is there, we’re somewhat impervious to permanent damage, or persisting injustice. Relief will come, even when situations seem hopeless: “by day the sun cannot harm you, nor the moon by night. The LORD will guard you from all evil, will always guard your life” (Psalm 121:7-8).

These passages are difficult to internalize. Any one of us can offer stories about times in our lives, or in the lives of loved ones, which seem proof that justice does not always prevail. We can read stories which seem to assert such “realities” in the paper, or see them broadcast in any newsreel. But our readings attempt to assure us of a broader justice, a covenant that remains strong despite daily arguments against it. They encourage us to keep faith, and trust that there will be relief. And of the tendency to believe that, because there is pain, there must not be a loving God, they say only that such inclinations are “myths” which divert our attention from “the truth” (2 Timothy 4:4).

Sometimes faith is not convenient; sometimes it would be easier, even look more sensible, to abandon it. Our readings prompt us to resist those desires as facile, and empty. “Be self-possessed,” they enjoin us; eventually, the reward will be in our own “renaming,” in our own assumption into a new and eternal realm of God’s love. If we wait, and believe, and persist: justice will come, and our lives lived in faith will have been, properly, evangelization.

The Imperative to Love

Readings: 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15; Luke 17:11-19; Psalm 66:1-12; Jeremiah 29:1-7.

I once knew a pastor who was ruined by his accent.


Actually, that’s scapegoating: it was not the accent that destroyed him, but his congregation’s reaction to it. As national debates heated up surrounding issues of citizenship versus illegal residency, his congregation began to complain, with increasing fervor, about his Columbian accent. They couldn’t understand him, they claimed, and so he couldn’t possibly really understand them. The communication gap, they believed, was too great.

Oddly enough, these complaints hadn’t really existed in years previous, and so it came to seem that their problem with him was not really that they couldn’t understand what he was saying; it was more that they didn’t want to. He came to represent the Other, the foreigner, the person against whom they must rally. They forgot he’d been their trusted spiritual leader. And, sadly, the overarching leadership caved, and the pastor in question was relocated to an area more likely to react favorably to the fact that he was Hispanic.

I’ve been very angry at his congregation over this for awhile now. It seemed self-evident, to me, that a Christian community should not react this way to someone, particularly a spiritual leader, based on negligible, even imagined, differences. They let themselves get too caught up in the ideas of proper “citizenship” and nationality, and in the process lost a really good pastor, one who had cared for them and done his utmost to exemplify Christian ideals. His “other”ness was not the problem; theirs was. By rejecting him based on his origins, they made themselves “other” to the Scriptures.

Our readings this week are full of aliens, sojourners, foreigners. They are not what we’ve come to expect from people shouldered with such terms. Indeed, the common rhetoric here, in our time, is that he who is the Other must be villianized and kept at a distance. “Other” is considered dangerous. But in biblical contexts, “others” are those who often surprise established nations or groups by being more faithful, more committed to God’s message, than those charged directly to live it out.

In 2 Kings, Naaman, a chieftain of another nation, is encouraged by an Israelite to go to the king in Jerusalem and petition the king’s prophet to have his leprosy cured. Doing so means deviating from all which he’s always known to be true. Yet he listens to the Israelite child and goes before the Israelite king. He is told to perform a simple act of faith—“wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean”--in order to become well (2 Kings 5:10).

Naaman wrestles with himself internally, but eventually decides to show this faith, and is rewarded by becoming healed. And, the text tells us, “he returned with his whole retinue to the man of God. On his arrival he stood before him and said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel’” (2 Kings 5:15). A hefty concession for any Israelite whose faith was daily tried; a grand one for a foreigner, of whom belief was not required.

In Luke 17, we read again of an afflicted foreigner, this time a Samaritan. He goes before Jesus as part of an ailing group. They beg to be healed. Jesus, never one to put too much stock in silly boundaries, of course heals them—as an act of love, as any creator would do for his created. And the Samaritan who is cured, one of many cured, the only foreigner among the cured, is the only to offer thanks: “realizing he had been healed, [he] returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him” (Luke 17:15-16). Jesus comments on this, affecting perhaps not entirely genuine surprise that this devotion comes from one not bound, by covenant, to Israel’s God: “Ten were cleansed, where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” (Luke 17:17-18)

The message that can be derived from these readings is not that sometimes, some foreigners surprise us by being better than we’d expect; rather, it’s that the notion of “foreigner” is entirely absurd in the context of faith.

Anyone can live out Christian principles. As such, we are required to love all people as our neighbors, not just those who “officially” belong to our communities. The communities mean nothing unless they’re built on values of inclusion.

We cannot rest in notions that, because we have been privileged, because we live in times and locations which are very blessed, we are ourselves blessed over and against other peoples. God loves all; he hears all petitions. And if we fail to welcome into our communities the “foreigners,” those who outwardly seem to be “Other”, we fail to do the work of being like Christ.

Before God, we are all slightly “other.” It is not until we begin the work of faith, of living out Judeo-Christian principles, that we become more of what God envisioned and designed us to be. By appropriating faith into all aspects of our lives, we begin the cautious approach towards accepting God’s grace. It waits us always, regardless of our locations—as the 66th Psalm tells us, shouting “joyfully” to God is a task enjoined of “all…on earth”, who “fall in worship before” God, singing and worshipping. The events in the land are evidence of this love; the mercy and favor they represent is available to all, in all lands.

We are charged, as were the Israelite exiles, with the responsibility of living amongst our neighbors with love. Even if they seem different from us. Even if their “ways” aren’t always easy for us to understand. They, too, are God’s—this is what binds them to us, what makes loving them an imperative. We are to “build houses to dwell in; plant gardens, and eat [shared] fruits,” and the welfare of the ground which we share is essential—our own rests upon it (Jeremiah 29:4, 7). We’re promised joy if we do this—not the joy of living without tumult, in a state of sustained tolerance, but the joy of living truly well, in the borderless community envisioned in scripture.

I worry for us, travelling along these paths we’ve designed. Our communities become less and less hospitable to those who we deem unlike us. This has not become a place where it is easy to be the “Other”. If we’re truly invested in the notion that we’re a nation built upon Judeo-Christian principles, continuing to alienate “aliens” does our foundations an inconceivable injustice. It becomes, in fact, absurd.

We cannot refuse to engage in spiritual communion with people who have different accents, or are differently acculturated; we cannot reject human beings without having even tried to understand them. A Christian community which is only open to some is, it would seem, closed off to Christ. We must counter such trends by doing work which is Jesus-like, which starts at the most basic levels of human communication. We must seek to engage one another, on ground which we find is shared despite our resistance, from a position of faith. All are beloved by God; living in his image, so must we love all.

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