Easter 6 C – George Yandell
Xenophobia. X-e-n-o-phobia. “Fear of the strange, the foreign, the different.” Xenophobia rises naturally in humans, it seems. It creates the need for humans to overcome their fears of the differences between them, if they want to co-exist and cooperate with one another. Xenophobia drives the need for “the healing of the nations” in the Revelation to John. Human tendencies to xenophobia drive Jesus to promise in the gospel, “Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”
I have read science fiction novels by C.J. Cherryh for some time. (The genera now called ‘Speculative Fiction’ by some.) In one 5-book series called “The Chanur Saga”, the characters in far off galaxies are all afraid of one another and they distrust particularly the dark, large, long-snouted, rat-like, tough-skinned beings called “the Kiff”. Brrr. The Kiff smell like ammonia, they are ruthless fighters, and seem always to make off with the prize when either wars or treaties are made. The problem is that every species’ trade routes are being upset by another species- (spider-like methane-breathing creatures- ugh!). The only progress they can make is when they overcome their differences and unite with a common front. But they all have this fear, an incredible fear, of those different from themselves. Even the Kiff fear those they themselves consider less formidable, less threatening. Where their fear comes from I don’t know. They seem to have no reason to fear anyone.
Good sci fi often serves as prophecy for the secular world. I believe Cherryh’s novels are fables about the here and now.
In Jasper and Atlanta there are clear parallels. We fear those different from us. Every culture of the world has people who are accepted or put down by the prevailing power elite. Often it’s around ethnicity, country of origin or poverty. Sometimes it’s around religion. Fear of the different is contagious. I think the Revelation to John and the gospel offer an alternative way- the way of fearless accepting and loving.
Everything Jesus preached created a bridge to a new domain, a new creation. The new way of Jesus breaks in through self-giving love. Jesus modeled how self-giving love works. The result of his self-giving love is a peace that surpasses the world’s ways. Examples of the new way are like the vision of heaven in the Revelation. “The nations will walk by the light of the glory of God. The leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations.”
The word in Greek for “nations” is “gen’tes”. It translates the Hebrew word which means “the others- Gentiles.” The Hebrew people worked in every aspect of life to keep themselves separate from the ‘gentes.’ Why keep separate? Because the Jews feared non-Jews. They had reason to. Yet their fear kept them isolated. It prevented them accepting many whom God sent to offer them redemption, love and peace.
Hatred rises out of fear. The bombings of the world trade center in New York and the other sites were carried out by people who hate. Their ugly hatred still galvanizes us 21 years later. The horror and outrage they created is still giving rise to an even stronger and wider-spreading hatred—hatred of those who live in the countries where the bombers came from. Hatred has multiplied as a result of their actions. Our fear of one another has grown because hatred has multiplied, and love has become scarce. Evil has won twice, and wins again every time fear spawns more hated.
Why are people in the south, and most Americans, so ready to fear one another? I believe it’s a matter of turf protection. Threats, or the perception of threats to our property, our turf, our security, our beliefs, those threats drive our fears. The need we have to call a piece of turf or a strongly held belief “my own” prepares us to fear incursion. The more our territory is threatened, the stronger grows the insatiable need to have stronger and stronger protections. Anyone who might take away our territory, our stuff, our way of living is judged to be an interloper and thus, an undesirable threat, an enemy.
I believe that we unconsciously project our interior darkness onto those who are most different from us. In fact, the greatest threat to your turf and my turf, our stuff, is disintegration of our culture because of our fear. Jesus once said in the gospel of Luke, “Hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” Look within you for your own fear, your own sin, and work to drive it out. The mistrust and fear that many of us have of different-skinned people and different-sexed people, people who threaten us because of cultural biases, cultural differences, is really a threat from within us. A fear in each of our hearts, a fear of losing what we have.
Instead, Jesus intends us to give love away freely. The bridge Jesus builds urges us to approach one another open-handed, open-hearted. What matters is not retribution, but our hearts, turning to love. The heart that opens itself and gives itself in concern for others is not a heart that is defensive, hateful, mistrustful, and bent on driving out those most different from us. This must be the Church’s central message for our culture in this still new millennium. If we can’t learn to trust, if we can’t begin to cross the bridges, rather than building walls, there won’t be a culture left for us.
Jesus knew that evil is ever present, and that the ONLY defense, the only hope for the world was his disciples and their love for one another. The times now demand the same from us- love one another as Jesus loves us. Act your love sacrificially. Open yourself to your neighbor, especially to the one most different from you. Fear only the loss of connection to your loving God.
Loving like this is hard. To equip ourselves to love in self-sacrificing ways, the Church offers these ancient, time-honored practices to us:
*Read the bible and other spirit-renewing works regularly both alone and together- join a small group to study the bible. Come to Sunday school.
*Pray daily for yourself, for your family, friends, for those in distress, for the Church, and for your enemies. Holy Family offers the daily offices online for all of us.
*Come to church regularly, hear the good news preached, confess your short-comings, receive God’s absolution and Holy Communion and go back into your daily places, where the action is, to work for Christ’s new creation of love.
*Tithe- give freely to God through the Church the first-fruits of your life’s work as the beginning of giving your whole self freely to God.
*And enjoy your faith- “faith” in Greek springs from the word same word as “fidelity.” Practicing fidelity in a relationship of love with God and with one another in these ways sets us free. All God requires is for us to be faithful. As long as we are aiming to be full of faith, we’re becoming free. God’s peace then has a chance to gather us as a loving mother gathers her children in her arms.
Even in the face of evil, Jesus offered himself in love. Love practiced through disciplined living toward Christ, allows our fears to subside, our hatred to cease, and our world to be healed, one person at a time. I want to coin a new word- Xenophilia. X-e-n-o-philia. Love of the stranger. From the Greek roots, “xeno”- strange, foreign, different; and “philia”- to love, have affection for. To have brotherly or sisterly affection for, is philia. If we cultivate and practice xenophilia in the face of xenophobia, we know God’s own peace. That’s the fruit of faithful living. It’s what Jesus intends.