If this world ever wants peace then people who perceive themselves to be enemies really need to talk and get to know each others names. And often when that happens, and people are called their names, and remember whether they take milk or sugar with their coffee, they become human, real people with whom you can have a conversation and begin to grow dreams together. It really ought not to be so surprising what common ground there is between people of faith. We have a great deal in common about how we relate to people and the world. Indeed Jesus said as he was talking to the scribes one afternoon that the differences were simply commentary. It strikes me this ought to be the higher way, the more 'Christian' way to speak about the centre of our faith more often of loving neighbour, but talk to our neighbour about it, get to know our neighbour's name and habits as we share tea (milk and sugar?) on common ground. So why is it we rather tar everyone with the same extremist brush and keep them enemies?
The too-ing and fro-ing of whether or not a Mosque should be built close to Ground Zero has put all believers in the spotlight. The question this story asks of us is: do we have a faith of compassion, generosity and grace? Do we have a faith that does as Jesus did and spoke to the individual (the Syro-Phoenician Woman, Zacchaeus etc) and found both sides of the divides were moved closer because they got to know each other? Has this news story shown us that the populist idea of Christianity has yet again revealed itself as a faith that is reluctant to work towards peace because we have not bothered to get to know our neighbour, let alone begun to love them?
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