{Video}

In the following video, produced by The Work of the People, Yale theologian Miroslav Volf begins to articulate the Christian faith’s spiritual virtue of honoring everyone — especially and precisely in the middle of profound cultural clashes around what is viewed as sacred. I thought this excerpt might make a good contribution to the Song of Machpelah project.

For a little background, the launching text for Miroslav Volf’s conversation on honoring everyone is the New Testament book 1 Peter, where the emerging Christian community finds itself on the cultural margins of political power. Volf says that, for the Christian, it doesn’t matter whether you are in proximity to power or on the margins. Those distinctions are ultimately “soft differences” in the light of Christian identity. “It’s not that I orient myself over against the [other] social groups by drawing boundaries,” he explains, “but rather, I’m oriented around the center [Jesus Christ], and boundaries fall as they might, as they will.”

Here’s the video:

Honor Everyone Miroslav Volf

The Song of Machpelah project is humbly designed to engage in a bold kind of culture-making between Christians and Muslims. Peace by piece.

Something found. In Robert Lacey’s captivating look and book Inside the Kingdom (2009). A parable.

The Imam and the Date Farmer

There was once a farmer who inherited an ailing and broken-down grove of date palms and who toiled long and hard to restore the palms to shape. He cut back dead branches, enriched the soil with camel droppings, and diverted a watercourse — to produce, year after year, a bountiful crop of luscious dates.

“What a glorious harvest God has provided!” remarked the long-bearded imam at the village, nodding his head in pious pleasure as he passed by the grove one day. “Thanks be to God!”

“Thanks be to God, indeed,” replied the farmer. “You should have seen the harvest when God was the only one doing the work!”

The Song of Machpelah project is humbly designed to engage in a bold kind of culture-making between Christians and Muslims. Peace by piece.

On December 13, 2011, I presented at the Spiritual Shots forum in Richmond, Virginia. The forum is hosted in the upstairs bar of a pizza joint in the city’s Shockoe Bottom district. My topic for this particular evening during the Advent season was the following: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

Of course, it’s a question of no little importance for faith. And for the living of faith for the common good of the real world. Because as Miroslav Volf has succinctly put it: “Theological wars fuel real wars.” But the reality is: this significant conversation is not at all content to play ball at some erudite theological level. For both Muslims and Christians, the theological is necessarily cultural and political — with all the attending and differentiating considerations, according to our religious traditions, of how the theological is cultural and political.

When it comes to the Almighty One, who he is, how he has revealed himself, how we might understand him and relate to him, and, ultimately, what he desires from us — these questions always pertain to a scintillating, age-old inquiry of preeminent values, right? So why do Christians and Muslims live how we live, and why do we mis-live how we mis-live, and what is our human responsibility for the social order? To be sure, theological wars don’t fuel real wars in all cases. But hostility and conflict between Christians and Muslims over preeminent values often ignites enough suspicion, fear or hatred that it makes the talking and the living together — not to mention the cooperating — in the geographies we share exceedingly challenging.

Here’s the audio from the presentation — Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? — as recorded by the Spiritual Shots forum. As you get a chance to listen, I’d love to hear your reflections on this increasingly pertinent and most pressing question.

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The Song of Machpelah project is humbly designed to engage in a bold kind of culture-making between Christians and Muslims. Peace by piece.

Caravaggio’s famous painting from the early 17th century

{Holy Week}

Easter Sunday

Hebrews 12:2

…looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. {English Standard Version}

Holy Week takes an interesting turn, down Elbow Road in Chesapeake, Virginia, and toward and into the Easter season.

On February 13, 2012, I found myself miserably stuck in highway traffic along I-64 East. Somewhere between Williamsburg and Virginia Beach, I was on my way to Chesapeake and Bethel Baptist Church, a quintessential, if not bigger than usual, country-road church. Eventually I would attend the memorial service for a ministry colleague, Melissa Cheliras, who died on February 10 at age 33.

Relieved from the frustrating morass of cars, people and highways, I finally made it to the intersection of Centerville Turnpike and Elbow Road, which is a very theological intersection if you ever have the chance.

When you make a left onto Elbow Road, before you arrive at Bethel Baptist Church, you will notice something that appears to be sitting all alone in the geographical corner. Given the high-concept stature of its name, the New Creation Renewal Center announces itself with a rather modest sign. But it was not lost on me that my former colleague, Melissa, was dramatically experiencing the vast effects of “new creation renewal” herself.

It is here, at this intersection, where the scripture writer passionately implores: look to Jesus. Of course, one of the most striking features of the image above is the look on the face of Thomas the disciple. He is captured by paint in an expression of incredible disbelief in the exact moment of his expanding belief. Truly, now, the great reversal of all-things-death has begun.

Like Thomas, the scripture writer knows: resurrection contextualizes cross. In other words, you can’t get to the church preaching the cross down the road without first having passed by the new creation renewal center. Easter, for the believer, is the ultimate lens through which to see and proclaim Holy Saturday and Good Friday.

Easter’s grand reversal at the core of the Gospel narrative is fully embodied in the person of Jesus, who, according to the scripture writer, is the founder and perfecter of our faith. Not to mention Thomas’s. As ever, then, Easter power and hope are inextricably tied to a singular person. In an absolutely stunning about face.

Behold.

“The Dead Christ,” a 19th-century sculpture by John Hogan, resting in St. Finnbarr’s Church in Cork, Ireland

{Holy Week}

Holy Saturday

Hebrews 2:8b-9, 14-15

(8b-9) At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

(14-15) Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Today, Holy Saturday, our family attended the memorial service honoring the life of my neighbor’s wife. She died on Wednesday — after a two-year face-off with cancer.

Yesterday, on Good Friday, I watched him mow his lawn. Incredibly mundane stuff, considering the week. On Thursday, the day after his wife died, my wife had watched him tenderly feed his cat on the front porch and then adjust something small in one of his flower beds. I could only suppose — in the wake of his wife’s death — there would be far greater adjustments as the sadness and disorientation settled in.

Yesterday, as my sons and I were shooting hoops in a rousing game of H-O-R-S-E on our portable basketball goal along the sidewalk, there was the sight of my neighbor, slowly pushing a gas-fueled machine back and forth over something that at least was still evidencing life. This image, along with the sculptor’s image above, is emblematic of the context for the scripture writer’s realism: “At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him [Christ].” No kidding, right?

Writing several decades post-Resurrection, the writer is admitting: all is not precisely as it should be. For example, among other things, death is very much hanging around. Exactly the strong sentiment of Holy Saturday.

During my neighbor’s wife’s memorial service, I listened intently as various people, in effect, tried to come to a sort-of terms about her death. There was even a poetic analogy describing a sailboat and the open sea. But what I realized on this Holy Saturday is this: Most every word that we can utter in the direction of death is merely grasping at it. Despite our best human efforts, no word is able to comprehend fully let alone actually overwhelm death itself.

Except one. Or two, in the words of the scripture writer. Namely, Jesus. The definitive Christian hope.

“So that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone,” the scripture writer asserts. So here lies Jesus. Dead. The sculptor’s image of the calm, dead Christ is starkly juxtaposed against the myriad of violent emotions we experience every day when we face it. Yet, apparently, what we see in this image is a grace from God.

In Roman Catholic churches no liturgical mass accompanies the commemoration of Holy Saturday; the altar is stripped bare to make the point. The emphasis is on sparseness, which is what death typically does with life — and then some.

But what this death — Jesus’ death — does is considerably different. As the scripture writer says: this death destroys the one who has the power of death even as it delivers those of us who face death from the fear of it. It is a fear that the scripture writer soberly likens to a lifetime of enslavement.

What Jesus will accomplish tomorrow, Easter Sunday, does not and will not relieve us from attending the memorial services of our neighbors. To be sure. However, that he — namely, Jesus — went all the way through death means that he has re-faced us to face this infernal enemy.

Behold.

Designed by the artist David Clayton, a close-up of the face of Jesus from a medieval-style crucifix hanging in the chapel of Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire

{Holy Week 2012}

Good Friday || The Face of Shame

Hebrews 12:2

…looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. {English Standard Version}

The writer of sacred scripture has enthusiastically ended this particular exhortation to believers with a bold, confident flourish. Of course, if anything, people who receive divine revelations are sometimes known for their exceeding confidence. But given the precise, excruciating, breathless moment captured by the artist’s image above, Jesus’ triumph and God’s victory would seem — by most any metrics — altogether unlikely in the waning hours of Friday evening.

This image, then, perfectly encapsulates the accepting and even humiliating posture in which the Jesus-follower is to face his or her world, too, especially in the face of experienced injustice and painful suffering. There is a known quantity (and quality) here that is not readily available to the naked eye of reason. Yet the non-gaze is quite able to arrest a person — with its overt weakness and decided foolishness.

Through this frozen Jesus — a still life, and a life gone still — believers are reminded (if we allow ourselves the thought) of a frightening and unsettling reality that is intently staring, as it were, at each of us. On Friday evening we look for, look at and look to the author and perfecter of our faith whose eyes are actually wide shut. Jesus is gone. He has gone and lost sight of the world. Which begs the serious question of the believer and unbeliever alike: How can he change the world from that position?

Furthermore, while he did see fit to face down the shame — to despise the shame, as the scripture writer proclaims valiantly — he also necessarily absorbs the shame in the theological paradigm of Christian faith. It is this exact act that might reasonably be said to diminish some of that much-ballyhooed “joy that was set before him.” On Friday evening everything has indeed conspired in dramatic fashion to hide his eyes from his own face. And at this point his own sight is entirely too much shame to bear.

Behold.

St. Augustine of Hippo

Hear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint under your discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto you all your mercies, whereby you have drawn me out of all my most evil ways, that you might become a delight to me above all the allurements that I once pursued; that I may most entirely love you, and clasp your hand with all my affections, and you may yet rescue me from every temptation, even unto the end.

{Ancient Christian Devotional, A Year of Weekly Readings, Lectionary Cycle B}

A view to the Gulf of Oman (Photo: Nathan Elmore)

In January, I spent two weeks in Oman studying Christian-Muslim relations through a graduate program partnership between Hartford Seminary and Al Amana Centre. This is a narrative dispatch. You’ll find other dispatches here.

Oman Journal: Inside Understanding

{Day 2} Metaphor, Impression, Example

Metaphor

Doug Leonard, the director of Al Amana Centre, had taken us on a brief walking tour of the complex surrounding the palace of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said in old Muscat. Afterwards, we found ourselves eating a late lunch at a Western-friendly restaurant along a small beach cove — the kind of place where lemon mint drinks were routinely being sipped and German and Italian were being spoken all the while oil tankers glided by on their way to America, I presume. While driving back to the Centre, Doug noted the surrounding jagged mountains — almost in passing — saying that, although tan and seemingly sparse, these mountains burst forth with all kinds of green vegetation when the rains actually come.

There are latent seeds in the ground, he said.

As a Christ-follower, immediately I was swept into the engrossing narrative described in the Gospel of John — the one where a Samaritan woman’s impromptu encounter with Jesus prompts him to offer her living water. Of course, as the story goes, Jesus the Jew and this woman from Samaria start discussing which mountains, religiously speaking, are best for right worship. At which point Jesus responds, transcending the conversation about religious mountains. It’s a moment where we see Jesus neither condemning the woman’s faith tradition nor commending her faith as entirely true. Then, in another transcendent moment, he says: “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (John 4:23).

It is as if any mountain, or person, is capable of bursting forth from tan to green when living water is involved.

Impression

Even on Day 2, as we wandered here and there trying to lose the jet-lag, a very particular impression could be felt: Omanis had somehow developed this identity and character which are able, rather authentically, to hold in dynamic tension competing forces. So, on the one hand, Sultan Qaboos comes to power in 1970 and ushers in a period of rapid modernization, including infrastructure, health care and education. But on the other hand — in contrast to a place like Dubai, for instance, with its blatantly hyper-modern excesses — Oman has mostly preserved and maintained its traditional culture during this social “renaissance.”

With one glaring exception: instant coffee. Nescafe, it seems, is slowly taking over the territory once undeniably ruled by “Omani coffee.” (I am tempted to insert a sad-faced emoticon here, but I will resist this insidious temptation.)

On the religious pluralism front, though Ibadism is the prevailing expression of Islam in Oman the conciliatory mood of Ibadis toward Sunnis, Shias, the Christian communities and Hindus is well-described in this statement by Michael Bos, the former director of Al Amana Centre: “As we survey the sweep of Oman’s history, a defining characteristic has been its ability to avoid an oppositional identity that defines who one is in terms of who one is against. One of the marks of Oman’s identity is who the country is able to include rather than exclude.”

Which raises the question: Would this open disposition suddenly change if the oil wealth ran dry and the basic economic-political climate shifted? Probably not is my initial impression.

Example

As the Islamic call for prayer was being summoned at sunset, we were once again riding along the brand new roads of old Muscat. Doug pointed out the beach sands along another small cove. He remarked that it was the burial site of several Christian missionaries from the Reformed Church in America’s Arabian mission, which dates back to the 1890s and which focused on starting and operating hospitals and schools.

In his 1989 essay “Roots of Muslim-Christian Conflict,” Mahmoud Ayoub describes colonialism, missionary activity and orientalism as three forces previously used by the West “to prevent Muslim unity at all cost.” Ayoub says that a “spirit of triumphal superiority” has “dominated missionary activity for most of its long history,” especially since the Protestant Reformation. He even quotes the Arab scholar Omar Farrukh as labeling Christian mission work in Arab countries “altogether evil” because of its linkages to political or economic purposes.

Yet even as I cast a glance over to the sands in which these missionaries were buried, after hearing their particular stories I couldn’t resist the positive thought: There, right there, is an example worthy of emulation. These missionaries had — by faithfully serving Omanis as doctors and nurses, school administrators and teachers, and notwithstanding the complex motivations of “conversion” — contributed to the common good of Oman’s 20th-century development. In so doing, they had earned the honor of being buried, as Christians, in a predominantly Muslim land.

Later, falling asleep, I would remember that Al Amana Centre “pursues opportunities for cooperation that contribute to the common good of the communities in which we live.” Now I knew where this humble example was coming from. It was right there under the sands.

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The Song of Machpelah is an interfaith writing project borne out of Christian-Muslim exchanges, experiences and ongoing study. At Machpelah, God willing, in small, medium or large ways a living song will arise. And it is a composition being put together by both Christians and Muslims. Peace by piece. For more on the project, go here.

Eric Fischl, Ten Breaths: Samaritan

The following is an address that I gave at Bluefield College, a Virginia Baptist liberal arts college in Bluefield, Va., in their weekly Convocation chapel on February 29, 2012.

“Neighbor Love: Old Samaritan/New Samaritan”

It is a distinct pleasure to be with you today—and an incredible privilege to share in your weekly Convocation.

Among other things, I serve as Baptist collegiate minister at Virginia Commonwealth University, where, even now, we are gearing up for another dose of March Madness and a hopeful run to another Final Four.

This is my first time in Bluefield, Va., at Bluefield College. And I have a serious affinity for the small, Christian liberal arts college. I attended one in Ohio, near Cincinnati, called Cedarville College.

Cedarville gave me many things, and at the top of the list…

My wife, Amie.

Then came…him.

And her.

And him.

My small college also gave me: my first and only intramural basketball championship (which I am still touting 18 years later); the memory of a World Literature class that I absolutely tanked; and incredible cross-cultural opportunities (I traveled to the Philippines twice on basketball-meets-mission tours).

Furthermore, it realistically gave me a beginning capacity to think critically about my Christian faith, the world which we inhabit and how to live responsibly with faith while not hiding from the world.

In January, I traveled to the country of Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula—in the land of Islam—for a two-week graduate course on Christian-Muslim relations. As I stood on these beautiful red-copper Wahiba Sands in Oman, I wondered: How on earth did I get here?

I was a Broadcasting Communications major in college, after all. I’ve been a pastor for 12 years or so, in various contexts—mega-churches, university churches, campus ministries. But over the past 5 years, while a pastor, God has been taking me further into a story that I never imagined being a character in.

In fact, diverse interactions and friendships with Muslims have contributed much to my spiritual growth. It is precisely through these interactions and friendships that my Christian faith and identity have been strengthened and expanded.

This morning, I hope to provoke and encourage the Christian community here at Bluefield College toward a more concrete love for a certain neighbor.

As Christians in America we live at a definitive intersection in terms of how we relate to Muslims in America and to Muslims around the world. I believe this “moment” is a timely moment — what Christian theologians who speak in Greek but who don’t know who Katy Perry is might call a kairos moment, a divinely opportune moment.

So I’ve got some brief reflections to share today on the Parable of the Good Samaritan — and on the Samaritan who goes by the name Muslim.

But, first, because this is a topic of extremely timely significance, I need to spend a few minutes talking about the “times” in which we Christians find ourselves with respect to Muslims.

As I see it, there are three observations to make about these times:

1. They are filled with global urgencies affecting Christian-Muslim relations.

2. There is great ignorance on the American street and in the American pews about Muslims.

3. And fear, for the most part, is growing and seems to be even winning.

Global Urgencies

This is not primarily a talking-point on Islamic extremism—or Christian extremism for that matter (see: the white guy from Norway last summer). This is, however, a conversation about the reality of animosities, hostilities and conflicts between Christians and Muslims who are living beside each other.

For instance, with the emerging democracies of the Arab Spring, the future of Christian minorities in countries like Egypt or Syria is a pressing issue. Last summer, I met an Iraqi Christian who was an exchange student at VCU. You could feel the anger seething in his heart toward Muslims. Meanwhile, there are massive Muslim-Christian tensions in Nigeria, which is home to the largest population of Baptists in Africa.

A popular Catholic philosopher has remarked: There will be no peace among nations without peace among religions. And I think he’s spot on.

Great Ignorance

It’s weird: You are in college at a moment in history when there has never been more “information” readily available. But, of course, information is not the same thing as knowledge. We may have heard of Sharia, but we don’t actually know anything about it.

And obviously—

This…

Is not this…

Quite significantly, even as the Muslim population increases in America, most Christians don’t actually have a relationship or friendship with a Muslim. Most Christians don’t actually know Muslims through the experience of knowing them; they know Muslims through media—through television and the Internet.

Growing Fear

What can we say: the politics of fear in the U.S. has, truly, got a pretty strong grip on some Christians.

Islamophobia is trending up. Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, recently suggested that President Obama was a “secret” Muslim. In December, the home improvement store Lowe’s pulled its advertising from TLC in order to boycott the cable channel’s show called “All American Muslim.” Lowe’s was pressured by a conservative evangelical group in Florida that felt like the show was showing too many good Muslims.

Into these times, and for this moment, there is—as ever—a light to guide us.

2 Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

There is a light in the face of Jesus Christ. And this light, I think, can lead us as we attempt to navigate global urgencies. It can teach us—pushing us beyond our ignorance. And perhaps most importantly: it can demonstrate for us how love casts out fear.

Luke 10:30-37

During Hurricane Irene weekend, my boys and I passed the time on a Saturday afternoon watching the relatively new but also vintage Western Unforgiven. One of the moral challenges of watching this film with boys who are 9 and 5 is this: an obvious purpose of the film and the story is to blur or to make unclear the lines between who exactly is a good guy and who exactly is a bad guy.

Unlike Unforgiven, the story of the Good Samaritan is more cut-and-dry, right? Maybe, maybe not…

Who is the hero of this story?

Well, one way to read it is this: Love is the hero.

The act or action that is love. The ethics embodied. The intentional, generous self-giving for the good of another person. Love, it seems, is riding off into the sunset at the end of the story.

Another way to read it (and equally important) is this: The enemy is the hero.

Maybe we could put it in stranger and stronger language still: The infidel is the hero. The despised one. That hated or villified figure.

So, with our imaginations then: If we substitute Christian characters for the Jewish characters, how would you feel about a Muslim playing the role of the Samaritan, the hero? How would you like it if Jesus told the story that way to you and to our American churches?

This parable is unbelievably beautiful, but I’m surprised we like the story so much. It absolutely offends religious sensibilities. It messes with who we think is good (or not good). It challenges our assumptions about what kind of people can do good. Very significantly, it re-arranges our categories of us and them.

I would propose that, in this famous parable, we see the light in the face of Jesus Christ breaking through in at least three challenging ways—with regard to how we see and relate to Muslims.

First: In God’s world, you cannot choose your neighbor.

In our world, maybe we can—but not in God’s.

When I lived in dear old Clemson, S.C., I had a neighbor who became one of the most genuinely invasive and irritating neighbors I’ve ever encountered. He happened to live directly across the street from our house. So, he was very much our literal neighbor. This guy was a classic, and one of his classic maneuvers was to borrow my car, which I freely let him do on a number of occasions probably to the point of enabling him. Upon one standout moment, this neighbor of mine actually broke into my car — while our family was on vacation — to use it for an errand or whatever.

He was indeed the kind of neighbor who daily reminds us, very vividly, that God chooses our neighbors.

God chose him—for me—because in God’s world, we cannot choose our neighbors. Which is another way to say: We cannot choose who Jesus has commanded us to love.

God had chosen that beaten up man along the road for the priest, Levite and Samaritan. And only the Samaritan loved.

Some of us American Christians need to admit that Muslim men and women, Muslim families, have been chosen by God to be our neighbors. You could be the one who helps your church admit this—and to live it.

The second sighting of light in the face of Jesus through this parable is this: In God’s world, Jesus always desires to take us beyond history and social convention—when it comes to loving our neighbor.

Jesus did not make a habit of breaking down every known barrier, so we would not have to.

In September 2007 our Honda Odyssey idled in the gravel parking lot of a mosque in Clemson, S.C.. As it turned out, the unadorned aluminum structure sat ironically and lonely on Old Stone Church Road in the Deep South. Suddenly my then two-year-old daughter voiced the words that apparently reverberate in America from time to time: “Mosque…scary.”

A man named Abdul had invited our family to join the Muslim community in the Clemson area for a veritable potluck dinner. Wanting in some way to share these new friendships with my family and hoping to model, albeit feebly, how to begin to move beyond — or through — barriers, I was now blessed by the seeds of a possible mutiny right there in the mosque parking lot. Intense, and with a burgeoning dramatic sensibility, my daughter vocalized the words again for all the minivan to hear — this time, drawing out the mosque scaaarrry for full theatrical affect and then smiling almost perversely.

“Kate, sweetheart, no, no, no, it’s not scary. Why are you saying that?”

“Mask. Scaaarrry…”

It was, of course, the run-up to Halloween, and our Kate had been thinking about masks, not mosques. There was our sweet daughter, giggling and babbling in our faces about the darker things that so often haunt those of us who are the less innocent children.

Some of us American Christians probably need to step out of the proverbial mini-van. We need to walk beyond our fear and mistrust, our mis-perceptions and misunderstandings of Muslims. You could be the one who helps your Christian friends to walk beyond.

A third prism of light from the parable is this: In God’s world, enemies-turned-friends are the very illustration of the Gospel story.

Why is this?

Because, simply put: the Biblical story says that you and I were God’s enemies before he loved us into friendship.

He loved us into friendship.

In the parable, please notice who is actually demonstrating the Good News. It is the one who is the religious outsider—the enemy, in fact. It is the person deemed to be wrong about religion and without proper faith.

In Oman, during my two-week graduate course, I met a Muslim graduate student named Ameer. Ameer is a Pakistani student at the Institute of Sharia Studies in Muscat, Oman. On a camping trip together in the Wahiba Sands, I had the truly fascinating experience of watching Ameer perform his ritual Muslim prayers, at sunset, out on the sands. Ameer’s commitment, his passion, his energy to pray—it honestly put me to shame.

I surely don’t view Ameer as the enemy. In fact, he is now a long-distance friend. But as you might guess, I maintain a friendly disagreement with him about a few important things (namely: the nature and mission of Jesus). Yet there he was, praying on the sands, evidencing his complete surrender and utter devotion to God.

Some of us American Christians—when it comes to matters of religion and faith—should learn how better to look for the good in the Muslim instead of being automatically argumentative. You never know: The supposed enemy might demonstrate for us an aspect of the Good News. You could be the one who helps your church, your friends, your circles, learn how to see the good in some modern-day Samaritans.

For Christians and Muslims, there is a very real sense of global urgency compelling us to relate better—better than we have, and better than we are. Nothing less than God’s peaceful purposes are at stake.

In America, at least, there is—generally speaking—a great ignorance about Muslims—which is heightened by the fact that very few Christians actually know any, or are friends with any. I propose we change that equation immediately.

And, well, it is what it is: Fear is all around us—and it has a sort of momentum. But as the parable, and the Samaritan himself, shows us: We cannot fear what we choose to love.

In short, I believe a knowledgeable love—flowing from the pure light of Christ—can and will transform personal relationships with Muslims and can and will influence the wider story of Christian-Muslim relations and of respectful Christian witness among Muslims for the sake of the kingdom of God.

May you find your role in the story, and may it be so.

Amen.

The Song of Machpelah is an interfaith writing project borne out of Christian-Muslim exchanges, experiences and ongoing study. At Machpelah, God willing, in small, medium or large ways a living song will arise. And it is a composition being put together by both Christians and Muslims. Peace by piece. For more on the project, go here.

From the Episcopal hymn book

{Hymn #142}

Lord, who throughout these forty days for us didst fast and pray,

teach us with thee to mourn our sins, and close by thee to stay.

And through these days of penitence, and through thy Passiontide,

yea, evermore, in life and death, Jesus! with us abide.

Abide with us, that so, this life of suffering over-past,

an Easter of unending joy we may attain at last!