Go And Do Likewise: Refugees and the Good Samaritan

Today I saw images from Magnus Wennman's photo project, "Where the Children Sleep." It features photographs of children among the refugees fleeing Syria (about half of the 4 million refugees are children)--images like the two below, each paired with brief stories about the children depicted:

Take the time to scroll through all the images and accompanying narratives. Meditate on their meaning. These children are victims of ISIS and their ilk, victims of extremism and ideological hate, victims of the same agents of terror who attacked Paris on Friday. They are beaten and bloodied, stripped of their homes and possessions, some of them half-dead. They are lying on the side of the road.

And now meditate on these words from Luke 10: 25-37:

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

There are victims of terrorist violence lying on the side of the road. We might choose to pass on the far side, frightened by those who say that perpetrators of terrorist violence are hiding among these victims. Perhaps something along those lines inspired the priest: he saw the victim and thought, "The robber might be near, waiting to pounce if I pause to help this poor victim."

There are victims of terrorist violence lying on the side of the road. We might choose to pass on the far side because they're one of "them": Muslims, our enemies, part of an undifferentiated mass of "others" whose lives don't matter to us as much as our own. Perhaps the Levite thought something along those lines: "My life matters more."

"But wait," you say. "There are other reasons to stay on the far side of the road. What if the Samaritan had been traveling with his son? Would Jesus have praised the Samaritan then? Putting his own son at risk for a stranger? We have our own children to look out for. Our first duty must be to them."

I can't tell you what Jesus would have said had the expert in the law offered this "what if." Perhaps we've become better at justifying ourselves since that legal expert crossed paths with Christ. With enough time to meditate on His parables, we're better at coming up with rebuttals.

Could terrorists be lurking amidst the sea of refugees, masquerading as victims in order to slip into the US?

Sure. But that approach to piercing our borders would require that they risk their lives on tiny boats, court starvation on the road, sleep on the cold dirt for weeks alongside the weeping children and mothers who are the victims of their own acts of terror. They'd likely be placed in some out-of-the-way community not-of-their-choosing along with their victims, with few resources of their own and little control over whether they are situated with access to their terrorist network or the means of committing terrorism--assuming, of course, that they are still determined to commit acts of terrorism after months of surviving alongside their victims and building bonds of solidarity with them.

They might get in that way. Or they might recruit someone with a clean record who can secure a student visa. As noted in one article, "There are many ways to come to the United States. Comparatively the refugee resettlement program is the most difficult short of swimming the Atlantic." Of all the ways extremists might pierce our walls, this is hardly the most promising. There are so many other ways they might threaten our security.

Of course we must care for our children. But there are children lying on the road.

Of course we should be careful not to needlessly expose those in our care to serious threats. But threats are everywhere. Perfect security is impossible.

In a world with imperfect security, compassion is all the more crucial. The compassion of strangers may be the thing that saves our children in their moments of greatest need. It's certainly the only thing that will save those Syrian children in Wennman's photographs.

Let us not create a world where the vain pursuit of perfect security kills the compassion that is so crucial in a world of dangers.

This does not mean we shouldn't act to secure our communities. But in buying more security, how much compassion should we be prepared to sell for incremental gains? How many victims lying on the road should we hurry past? How many times should we offer rebuttals to Jesus' injunction to "go and do likewise"?

If rebuttals to Jesus are the currency of security, how many are we prepared to offer? A dozen? A hundred? Or--given the number of refugees--four million?

I don't know. What I do know is this: If the story of the Good Samaritan does not apply to this moment, it has lost its meaning.

Love and Fear: Lessons Learned from Cantors and Good Samaritans

Many people are afraid of the influx of refugees in Europe, and there are those who feed on and fuel that fear. Not long ago, Fox News showed a video--falsely said to be recent footage of refugees--that depicts Muslims on a train chanting "God is great." The caption reads, "Terrorists Inbound?"

The news network is not here inventing fear, but playing to it. Many people are afraid that the influx of Muslim refugees will also mean an influx of potential new terrorists on European soil. Many argue that the fear is warranted. But for me, the question of whether it is warranted is the wrong question to ask.

Fear is rooted in our instinct for self-protection (and also for protection of those we care about). It inspires action meant to reduce our vulnerability to harm. But in acting out of fear, we often make the world more dangerous.

Fear doesn't change the world for the better, and too often it triggers mutual fear responses in a feedback loop of escalating danger: You are afraid of me, and so you adopt a defensive posture, ready to fight or flee. I see your posture and find it threatening, so I become afraid and adopt a similar posture. Our fear of each other makes us ready to hurt each other, and the more ready we are the more scared we become until our fear has created the very situation it is meant to protect us from: We are an imminent danger to each other.

What is the pathway out of that cycle? The answer is simple but profound: love, love that hopes for the best and works the best even though it puts the agent of love at risk. When I am no threat to you and you reach out to me with vulnerable love, I remain no threat to you. When I am a threat to you and you reach out with vulnerable love, you make yourself vulnerable--but you also create opportunities for transformation. You act in a way that can change the world, or at least your own small corner of it.

In 1991, a Jewish Cantor named Michael Weisser moved to Lincoln, Nebraska with his family. He was soon targeted for harassment by the Grand Dragon of the Nebraska Ku Klux Klan, Larry Trapp. Instead of responding with fear, he responded with love.

So what did Weisser do? His Jewish faith taught him that the best way to overcome an enemy was to turn them into a friend. and so Weisser started calling Trapp and leaving messages on his answering machine. Not messages like "Stop harassing me!" or "I'm calling the police." Messages like this: "Larry, there’s a lot of love out there. You’re not getting any of it. Don’t you want some?"

Finally, Trapp answered the phone when Weisser called. Because Weisser knew that Trapp was disabled, he offered to help Trapp with his grocery shopping.

The whole story can be found in Kathryn Watterson's book, Not by the Sword, but here's the end of it: Trapp converted to Judaism. He apologized to those he'd hurt with his hate. When his health deteriorated, he moved into Weisser's home, where a room served as a kind of hospice. Weisser preached at Trapp's funeral.

Today, Weisser is a rabbi in Queens, where he continues to reach out in a spirit of love.

If unconditional love can turn a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan into a Jewish convert, what else can it do? Today I saw a video of a Christian group, Samaritan's Purse, helping with the refugee crisis in Europe. Samaritan's Purse is an international relief organization inspired by Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan to reach out and help people in need. I've pasted the video here. Please take a few minutes to watch it if you haven't already:



Now imagine this: Imagine that every refugee landing in Europe (or elsewhere) is greeted with the kind of compassion on display in this video. Every child, every elderly person, every man and woman who decided the risk of death was preferable to staying where they were. Compassion and care without agendas, without hidden strings. Just humans helping humans in need. Imagine that this compassion doesn't end on the shore, but continues as the refugees make their terrified way in a foreign land. Imagine that it becomes a daily feature of their experience in their place of refuge.

If that happens, how likely is it that they will become agents of terror in their new home? How likely would this be if, instead of a spirit of love, they were greeted in a spirit of suspicion, a spirit of hostility and fear?

As I said above, there are those who ask how justified is the fear that the refugee influx will open Europe's doors to a new generation of terrorists. But I think that is the wrong question--the wrong question for Christians like me, for Jews like Rabbi Weisser, and for all of us regardless of our faith.

The right question, I think, is this one: How can we resist the spirit of fear that perpetuates distrust and hostility and in its place cultivate the spirit of love, the spirit that makes friends out of strangers, even those who (as in the case of Weisser and Trapp) might start out as our enemies?

It is important to be realistic about something: the decision to act in a spirit of love does make us more vulnerable to those intent on harming us. Love means risk. It doesn't mean foolish risk, like hiring a person convicted of child abuse to babysit your child. But it does mean creative risk--the risk that comes with acting out of the hope of building community and connection in a world where people are afraid of one another.

If we live in a spirit of fear, we create and perpetuate and magnify the threats around us, even as we make ourselves less vulnerable to them in the short run. If we live in a spirit of love, we do the opposite. But whatever risks creative love brings, such love is the only path to a better world.