Arabic original here.
Between the Murderer and the Thief, They Were Crucified
The Apostle Paul commanded the people of Rome, the greatest city of that long-ago time, to be committed to giving hospitality to strangers. By this he meant giving hospitality to the poor who find themselves cast into the streets of a city that looks down upon them and rejects them with its pride as cold as its marble. Is it merely a coincidence that the same glory of palaces and tombs is in marble?
You, Syrians taking refuge in God's mercy, have "fallen into the hands of thieves." Murderous thieves, bloodthirsty thieves-- you fled from their mortars, their barrel-bombs and their machetes and have fallen into the hands of new thieves, wolves in sheep's clothing. You fled from those who allow you to be oppressed and your blood to be shed, and you were received by those who want to trade in your bodies and permit your honor to be taken.
However, we who fear God and His judgment cannot say "let us please ourselves", as Paul himself says to the Romans, "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification." Our pleasing God remains meaningless and futile if we do not please our neighbor, especially our neighbor who has "fallen into the hands of thieves"-- under a hail of deadly artillery and missiles. Prayer, fasting and all worship is in vain if man is not also the place where God is worshiped, especially man who seeks refuge with us.
"The Spirit of God dwells within you" and you have become the direction of prayer for all those who seek God's face. We have made a pilgrimage to you, as to holy thresholds, to Christ's tomb. You have become the Holy Land, after murderers profaned the land, the land of Syria, for which our eyes and our hearts yearn until we see her purified, when her anguish is over. God does not dwell in stone. He prefers to dwell in warm hearts. "Give me your heart and it is enough."
You were a stranger and you became a neighbor, or even closer than a neighbor. Kinship here, in this instance, is not "kinship of flesh and blood." Our standards for determining who is a neighbor are not of this world. For us friends of the Nazarene, kinship is a process governed by compassion. Every refugee, displaced person and vulnerable person on earth, no matter what religion, sect or nation he belongs to, is my neighbor.
When the Samaritan, an outcast within Jewish society because he is considered to be unclean on account of having mixed with the gentiles and deviated from the faith, helped the man left half-dead by robbers, he did not ask the name of the person who needed him. He did not ask his religion or his nationality. Instead, he bandaged his wounds, put him on his pack animal and took him to an inn, where he ordered that he be taken care of and he paid two dinars to the innkeeper for this. The Syrian citizen who is fleeing from hell, seeking a safe roof to shelter him and his family, is here and now the one whom God has placed along our path in order to become our neighbor. We shall be asked about our treatment of him on the Day of Reckoning.
It is shameful and embarrassing that politicians are exploiting a humanitarian issue, the issue of Syrian refugees and practicing their racism and their repulsive sectarianism in order to create excuses for their refusal to give shelter and aid to the refugees. As for those who support welcoming the Syrians, they also do so on the basis of sectarian bigotry when they make their arguments. But if most of the refugees belonged to a different sect than the one that predominates now, then perhaps we would find those opposed in the position of those in favor and those in favor in the position of those opposed!
Both sides are equal in their racism, sectarianism and blind bigotry. When will human dignity become the sole motivation for our behavior?
Between the Murderer and the Thief, They Were Crucified
The Apostle Paul commanded the people of Rome, the greatest city of that long-ago time, to be committed to giving hospitality to strangers. By this he meant giving hospitality to the poor who find themselves cast into the streets of a city that looks down upon them and rejects them with its pride as cold as its marble. Is it merely a coincidence that the same glory of palaces and tombs is in marble?
You, Syrians taking refuge in God's mercy, have "fallen into the hands of thieves." Murderous thieves, bloodthirsty thieves-- you fled from their mortars, their barrel-bombs and their machetes and have fallen into the hands of new thieves, wolves in sheep's clothing. You fled from those who allow you to be oppressed and your blood to be shed, and you were received by those who want to trade in your bodies and permit your honor to be taken.
However, we who fear God and His judgment cannot say "let us please ourselves", as Paul himself says to the Romans, "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification." Our pleasing God remains meaningless and futile if we do not please our neighbor, especially our neighbor who has "fallen into the hands of thieves"-- under a hail of deadly artillery and missiles. Prayer, fasting and all worship is in vain if man is not also the place where God is worshiped, especially man who seeks refuge with us.
"The Spirit of God dwells within you" and you have become the direction of prayer for all those who seek God's face. We have made a pilgrimage to you, as to holy thresholds, to Christ's tomb. You have become the Holy Land, after murderers profaned the land, the land of Syria, for which our eyes and our hearts yearn until we see her purified, when her anguish is over. God does not dwell in stone. He prefers to dwell in warm hearts. "Give me your heart and it is enough."
You were a stranger and you became a neighbor, or even closer than a neighbor. Kinship here, in this instance, is not "kinship of flesh and blood." Our standards for determining who is a neighbor are not of this world. For us friends of the Nazarene, kinship is a process governed by compassion. Every refugee, displaced person and vulnerable person on earth, no matter what religion, sect or nation he belongs to, is my neighbor.
When the Samaritan, an outcast within Jewish society because he is considered to be unclean on account of having mixed with the gentiles and deviated from the faith, helped the man left half-dead by robbers, he did not ask the name of the person who needed him. He did not ask his religion or his nationality. Instead, he bandaged his wounds, put him on his pack animal and took him to an inn, where he ordered that he be taken care of and he paid two dinars to the innkeeper for this. The Syrian citizen who is fleeing from hell, seeking a safe roof to shelter him and his family, is here and now the one whom God has placed along our path in order to become our neighbor. We shall be asked about our treatment of him on the Day of Reckoning.
It is shameful and embarrassing that politicians are exploiting a humanitarian issue, the issue of Syrian refugees and practicing their racism and their repulsive sectarianism in order to create excuses for their refusal to give shelter and aid to the refugees. As for those who support welcoming the Syrians, they also do so on the basis of sectarian bigotry when they make their arguments. But if most of the refugees belonged to a different sect than the one that predominates now, then perhaps we would find those opposed in the position of those in favor and those in favor in the position of those opposed!
Both sides are equal in their racism, sectarianism and blind bigotry. When will human dignity become the sole motivation for our behavior?
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It is shameful and embarrassing that politicians are exploiting a humanitarian issue, the issue of Syrian refugees and practicing their racism and their repulsive sectarianism in order to create excuses for their refusal to give shelter and aid to the refugees. As for those who support welcoming the Syrians, they also do so on the basis of sectarian bigotry when they make their arguments. But if most of the refugees belonged to a different sect than the one that predominates now, then perhaps we would find those opposed in the position of those in favor and those in favor in the position of those opposed!
Can you supply the context for this?
I guess not.
Sorry on the delay. The context is that the refugees in Lebanon are overwhelmingly Sunni (Christians and Alawites mostly internally displace within Syria and if they go to Lebanon don't officially register as refugees), which worries the Shiites and their allies and has kind of turned the issue of care for the refugees into a very divisive sectarian-political issue. The idea of the paragraph you cited is that if the refugees were non-Sunnis, the discourse about them in Lebanon would be switched, just with the parties exchanging roles.
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