Time to be the Church in the Middle East

Our speaker this weekend, Dr. Martin Accad of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Beirut, was provocative, to say the least. We were forced to think through issues of justice and mercy as they relate to the Middle East. Whether he intended to or not, he forced us to re-think our response to the parable of the Good Samaritan. And while he emphasized that the one called to love his enemy, accept help from one’s conventional enemy, is the one who lies wounded on the ground, it misses the essential point of the parable, and that is this: to be a neighbor, regardless of the barriers, and in the process, fulfill the law of love.                                                                                                            

As with almost every parable, there is an underlying question. In this case, there is no mystery. The question simply put is this, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25). What follows is a story intended to answer the question. A neighbor is the person willing to show mercy to one who is hurting, irrespective of his/her race, nationality, or religion. By using a Samaritan, one who was traditionally hated and despised by the Jews, as the “neighbor” in this story, Jesus surely shocked His audience. If He were telling this story to a Jew today, in our current turbulent context, He might use a leader of Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah as the one who stopped to minister aid.                                                                            

That we are called to do likewise (vs. 37) is Jesus’ admonition to the church to extend a radical sort of mercy to the hurting, without letting religion get in the way (vs. 31-32). And who are the hurting, the wounded?  Who could the church show mercy to, that would fulfill this law of love that would epitomize the parable of Luke 10 that might even gain the attention and respect of the world?  In the context of the current conflict, that so dominates the news, it would seem to be those who have been “beaten and stripped,” especially those we might be least inclined to help.

• To the hurting Lebanese, who have endured years of civil war, who have been at the mercy of geo-politics, have endured under Syrian oppression, and now are suffering significant destruction.
• To the hurting Jewish people, who have endured centuries of abuse and homelessness by peoples and governments, and behind all of this, an enemy of darkness who has made the Jew an object of his hate, clearly evident from Genesis to the present because of their status with God.
• To the Palestinians, who at the root of much of this conflict, have been ignored by governments on all sides, who have endured their own loss of land, and been treated in a heavy handed way by their neighbors, such that they have lost most of their dignity and hope.
• To those driven to acts of terror, not all, but yes, to those who have driven to acts of violence out of total despair; who, are not consumed with another’s right to exist, but simply want justice, who prefer to live in peace
• To those leaders of governments—beginning with our own—who have been given the mandate to be a “terror to bad conduct” (Rom 13:3); who need the wisdom of God and yet are often mocked and treated with scorn

Seems to me the church, fulfilling the parable of Good Samaritan, is the church that is focused on binding wounds in all of these contexts:

• Sending whatever food and medicine it can to Lebanon, and any other acts that will go towards reconstruction; For Lebanon remains one of the best entry points to bring the gospel and strengthen the church
• Praying for the peace of Israel, calling on the nation to extend mercy rather than retribution, for vengeance has only made for a more unstable Middle East, and poisoned any hope of lasting peace
• Praying for the church, be it in Jerusalem or Damascus or Baghdad or Beirut or Tehran, to be salt and light, and help our brothers and sisters wherever and however they are suffering the wounds of the ongoing cycle of violence
• Praying for our government to be wise. To go beyond the standard foreign policy dictum of self interest, and consider the interest of others. For our president, to demonstrate his own personal faith in Christ by concerning himself, above all else, with the root issues and settle for nothing less than extending justice and mercy to people on all sides of the conflict

Unfortunately, there seems to be all too many Christians, those especially caught up with apocalyptic fever, who are less interested in fulfilling the law of love and more interested in prophetic fulfillment; who seem less interested in securing justice and mercy for the future, and more interested in seeing biblical Israel restored in the present. And when the church shows this front, as with previous conflicts in the Middle East, the church makes little to no difference at all. Shouldn’t it be different? Could it be God is providing a window for the church to, for once, be the church in a region where the church has counted for so little?