Loving our Muslim Neighbors

Governor after governor has told the President they will not accept Syrian refugees into their state. Presidential candidate Jeb Bush has said we should only accept Christians, while Donald Trump says that if he were elected he would round up all the Syrians in the United States and send them back. 

It’s not just the politicians, though. I saw it all over the place yesterday, with people commenting on Facebook posts saying that we shouldn’t accept these refugees because they aren’t willing to stand and fight for their country. Or saying that those Muslims aren’t like us so we can’t have them coming into our country and ruining everything.

“They’ll be speaking a foreign language we don’t understand. ”

“If there are any good ones they are going to take our jobs.”

“They’ll just be a drain on the system, they don’t have any skills.”

Ignoring the fact that we have no way of knowing if any of them speak English or have marketable skills, it’s a sick world we live in where the only reason we’ll accept a refugee is if it doesn’t inconvenience us, or if the refugee has something to offer us. This demonstrates the epitome of an American culture that only places value on someone’s life if they can do something for us.

While God says we all have value simply because God made us in God’s image.

What saddens me most is that, if I dare venture a guess, many of the people saying such things would claim to be Christian. It seems, though, we’ve forgotten the words of Jesus who said that in the final judgment we’ll be separated into two groups, and one of the distinguishing factors will be how we did or did not welcome the stranger in our midst.

I’m pretty sure refugees count.

Or that the two most important commandments were to love God and to love neighbor as yourself.

Or who told us to imitate the Samaritan who gave aid to his people’s mortal enemy, risking his own life to take care of someone who had fallen at the hands of robbers and thieves. (Go back and read that story from the point of view of the Samaritan. I think it has a lot to teach us about how we should be neighborly to our Syrian and Muslim neighbors).

Instead people in this “Christian nation” are suggesting we should leave our global neighbors in harm’s way or that we should round up the one’s who are here and send them back. I’ve seen people in this “Christian nation” bear false witness against their Muslim neighbors, claiming that the village they live in is an ISIS training camp.

This is absolutely repugnant, disgusting, and un-Christian. I can’t fathom that this is happening in the 21st century in the United States. It wasn’t that long ago that we were rounding up Japanese  and putting them in internment camps, or that polls were showing that we didn’t want those Jewish refugees from Central Europe messing up our lives.

I guess our collective memory is short, and it’s easier to send bombs and ammunition than it is to open our houses, our hearts, and our lives to the other.

But, at the risk of sounding pat, what would Jesus do?

It’s hard; Jesus never said it wouldn’t be. But we can love uncontrollably and accept strangers into our midst unconditionally because we know that, as Paul said, nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. So if something goes horribly wrong, God’s love will still be with us.
So, in a world like this, the best we can do is love our Muslim neighbors, and show them that not all followers of Jesus are as hate-filled as it would seem. Who knows, you may even make a good friend, and learn something about this world and those who are in it that you didn’t know before, and your life will be the better for it.