Helping "Them"

“When poor people or orphans cried out for help, I came to their rescue.” (Job 29:12)

Decades ago, when my wife was a graduate student, she met and befriended another young woman student who, it turned out, was (and is) married to a delightful man of Turkish origin. Being a student, and wanting to be prepared for her first encounter with someone from the exotic land of Turkey, my wife did her research. She reports learning from an encyclopedia (perhaps Britannica?) that most Turks are Muslim, and are dour, and are teetotalers, who eschew pork. Soon thereafter she visited her friend’s home. I can imagine her surprise when she was greeted at the door by a laughing young Turk, with a drink in one hand and a bacon-laced hors d’oeurvre in the other!

Each of us has ideas about what “they” – whoever they might be – are like. Sometimes we learn about “them” from our friends or parents, and sometimes from other authorities, like encyclopedias, or nowadays, Wikipedia. Sometimes we’re lucky enough have our knowledge base challenged, enlightened or informed, when we meet some of “them,” and come to know just how similar we and they are.

A few days before Christmas last year, a good friend invited my wife and me to come for Christmas Eve dinner. It would be informal, with another couple and their daughter. “They’re Jewish, you know,” she said. “They don’t have much to do on Christmas Eve.” And we’d finish well before the start of the late service that evening.

So there we were, gathered around the Christmas Eve table. Seven friends, two races, three generations, three religions (Jews, Christians, Agnostics) enjoying Dungeness crab together. (By the way, I learned a long time ago that Jews don’t eat shellfish! Right!) And afterward, we sang and played some lovely Christmas music together.

Our friends have been working together to publicize part of a huge problem in the world: Helping those many orphans of AIDS parents in Africa. This appears to be entirely appropriate to our friends’ Jewish and Christian traditions. In fact, the Holy Bible instructs the people to address the needs of, and to protect, the widows, the poor and the orphaned. Exodus 22:21-24 admonishes us to “not mistreat widows or orphans.” Deuteronomy 14:28-29, instructs us to “give food to the poor who live in your town, including orphans, widows and foreigners.” Job defines the sinner as one who oppresses those who need protection (Job 24:21).

Our friends are acting on the Old Testament teachings. They are ignoring the differences some would have us notice between Jews and Christians, and between Americans and foreigners. When we focus on the differences between us and others, we often lose touch with just how much we -- whether rich or poor, widowed or orphaned or not -- share as humans who live together in God’s/Allah’s/YHWH’s world. In fact, we need and depend upon each other to rescue us when we cry out.