Conversations at Panera 2.  The Diplomat and the Evangelical.

“Can I say something?”  the retired diplomat asked, leaning over the table there at Panera on Tuesday morning where the Evangelical sat with his bible in front of him.  “I overheard earlier that you guys were talking about the story of the Good Samaritan this morning and it just struck me how hypocritical we are being in our country about who is our neighbor.   I am upset about this manufactured crisis the President has created over the wall, full of lies, like the one that painted the brave town of El Paso as a crime haven when it never was.  And now he declares a national emergency when the number of immigrants coming in are half what they were?  What happens when we have a real emergency? His policies are cruelly separating the mother and her child, and it seems to me that you Evangelicals are supporting this.  Did not Christ say, ‘woe to you, hypocrites, because you neglect justice, and pile heavy burdens on people’s shoulders and won’t lift a finger to help’?  Did he not call out the pharisees in just such a moment, saying ‘whoever causes these little ones to stumble it would be better for them to have a great stone around their neck and be drowned?’ “  

The Evangelical looked up from his table where earlier their bible study had met to discuss the Gospel of Luke and was now on chapter 10 containing the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The morning sun was shining brightly through the windows and narrowed his eyes, but the light sat upon his face so that it shone with a kind of luster of peace. 

“Yes, the road down from Jericho to Jerusalem was long and rough and full of dangers,” said the Evangelical.

The diplomat then started talking right away blithely over the obtuse comment. “Well, as I understand it, the story is about how we must help our brothers and sisters where ever they are.  The essential question is ‘who is our neighbor?’, and it seems to me especially in this modern world, with Internet friends everywhere and problems from Syria to China that affect us all, that we are all neighbors, we are a global village. But certainly, the people of Mexico and Central America are our neighbors.  I can’t believe Christ believed there were national boundaries there that mattered when it came to the love for your neighbor.  Is that not true?” asked the diplomat.

“And how is it that we help?” the Evangelical asked quietly. 

“Certainly not by walling them out.  As a US diplomat I have worked around the world trying to help needy countries with economic development and aid to the poor and the starving.  Isn’t that what God asks us to do?  I feel like the men and women I met in my tours in Africa where as close to me as any of these old white men are that run our country now.”

“What were they seeking? What was the man in the story seeking?” The Evangelical asked.

“Well, besides economic development, of course our aid programs were extensive eliminating poverty, famine and disease.  I was involved at one time with the AID program in Ethiopia that tried to rescue the starving people from the effects of famine and war.  Remember that great effort?  Live Aid. We had the big rock and roll concert and raised millions to feed the starving children?  Unfortunately, it had some negative effects in the long run, since in part, because of requirements from the US Congress, we ended up destroying much of the indigenous farming capability so that we helped create a cycle of feed and famine.  But we meant well, and we are doing better, isn’t that what counts?  We have to work to teach a man to fish.”

“Are you a humanist?”  the Evangelical asked abruptly.

“Well, yes, a humanitarian and proud of it, the diplomat rejoined, glad to expound.  Isn’t that what the story of the Good Samaritan is all about?  Isn’t that why Christ says, to love our neighbors as ourselves?  I believe in working to ease suffering and to make for a better world where there is no disease and starvation.  We have that responsibility and I have spent much of my career and life working on it.”

“You will have the poor with you always”, the Evangelical interrupted in a soft tone that had a tinge of sorrow in it. 

“Well that is hard!”, accused the diplomat. “What is that supposed to mean?  That we just give up and walk away.  ‘Not my problem?’  We have to keep trying.  What was the whole point of the story of the Good Samaritan if not to help the downtrodden?”

“Is it not then, more blessed to given then to receive?” asked the Evangelical.  “Who has their reward now?”

“Now, you do puzzle me, man”, the diplomat started again on his expounding roll which always seemed to have a little sarcasm and a little patronizing in it along with an effort to be Socratic. “So I can get my jollies and ease my conscience, it does not cost me much and then go home and sleep well if I just send off some money to your missionary fund that helps the orphans which may be just silently compounding neo-colonialism?  You confuse me, I don’t get what you say.  Okay, maybe it does help me grow to, to reach out to another soul.  And that is what I believe in.  We should not look down at these needy.  In many ways they have deeper souls and more human understanding than we do.  I have seen how they care for each other in the villages and how their life is built around people and connections rather than our meaningless life of things.  I get that.  But that is why I do not understand how Evangelicals, good Christians like your group, can focus putting up this ugly wall.  And support the man who has so little apparent Christian values.  Does he represent the fruits of the Spirit; love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control??.  or does he better represent the evil of the end times; “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, slanderous, without self-control, rash, conceited?  I ask you to answer that!” concluded the diplomat almost as though with an “harrumph”.

After an instant of sacred silence, the Evangelical asks, “And why does the Lord tell the story of the Good Samaritan, how do you read it?”

“I don’t know, rejoined the diplomat. A man is on the road to Jerusalem and some criminals jump him and beat him up.”

The Evangelical flips the page of his bible back to Luke, 10, verse 25 and turns the book so that the diplomat may read it.  The diplomat reads quietly, ^“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and, Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

 “  Ooookay”, conceded the diplomat, “I still don’t get it.  How can you not love God if you love his people; the paragon of God’s creation?”

“Would you put the Beta before the Alpha?” asked the Evangelical. “You will be forever understanding and never acknowledge the truth.”

“Man, you are kind of inscrutable there, Mr. Evangelical,” pronounced the diplomat with some appreciation for the mystery of it and the challenge the statement seemed to represent.  “Are not these two commandments dependent on each other?  Doesn’t loving your neighbor make you love God?  Or does it?  I am going to have to think about that one”, concluded the diplomat.

“I have to admit that I am still angry about this stupid wall”, the diplomat started again, half as confession of his lack of self-control.  “It is ugly, immoral and not in the spirit of the great humanitarian Jesus Christ I know.  I get so worked up that it I can feel my blood pressure going up.  Can’t we stop this un-Christian behavior?  Can’t we do as Christ would have us do?  There is already 700 miles of wall.  We need people down there not just another fence.  It is silly and stupid, and the money could be spent on helping the poor that Christ came to help.  We could be easing the economy in Central America where these people come from and help them live at home in their own country, instead of raiding important programs from the defense department to feed one man’s vanity project.  One of my great guiding lights, the poet Robert Frost wrote, ‘something there is that does not love a wall.’ He wrote that a man trying to build that wall is a thing moving in darkness, not like the light of God in each of us.”

The Evangelical rose now and stood strong and tall, looking into the eyes of the diplomat.  Gently he put his hand on the diplomat’s shoulder, pausing, as though a little something went out of him and said, “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. The servant must be kind to everyone “

 - “Then you agree with me!”, the diplomat burst in seeming to need a last word.

“Able to teach, not resentful”, finished the Evangelical almost as though to give the diplomat some words to use.

“May the Peace that passeth all understanding be with you” and he turned and walked off towards the sun in the door leaving the diplomat with the morning warmth of the risen sun.

A Conversation at Panera.  The Good Doctor and the Evangelical

Two men sat at adjacent tables there at Panera, the one, the good Doctor who had two years ago retired from government work, reading his newspaper, and the other man, the evangelical, with a Bible open in front of him.  The newspaper story was about the latest report from the United Nations on Climate Change.  600 top scientists on the panel from around the world with review by their governments, had concluded that we are currently headed toward a 3-degree Celsius warming that will create massive species loss, the total loss of tropical coral reefs and sea level rise as high as 2.5 meters by 2100.  A report by 13 Federal agencies to congress had seconded the conclusions and written that climate change will reduce the US economy by 10%.  The Good Doctor had devoted a 30-year career to NIH studying cancer diseases and the effect of toxins on our populations.  Reading the story an anger started to well up in him and he shook his head.  He had seen the man at the table next to him earlier with a group of bible thumpers doing their study in front of everyone.

He looked over at the man next to him, immersed in a page from Luke.  The man at the second table was a reading a passage in which, Christ, being pressured, to perform another miracle, this one to remove demons from a young man, says, “How long must I put up with this unbelieving and perverse generation?’

Out of the fullness of his heart the Good Doctor spoke, “how can evangelicals really care when the world burns around them and they do nothing to end it?”.  He knew as he spoke that it was judgmental and from a simmering anger, but it was nevertheless true and needed to be said. He had overheard the group talking idly earlier when they had settled down into their study about how terrible late term abortion was, and how gun control was a pointless way to address crime.  One had commented how well the President had done in his State of the Union Speech and then concluded with a quip, “ at least he didn’t have to give it in a snowstorm caused by global warming!”   The Good Doctor was tired of seeing hypocrisy around him while his children’s future was at stake and he had to watch the inevitable catastrophe  engulf the dear sweet earth he loved to walk among every day and longed to leave whole for the children he loved greater than life itself.

The Evangelical heard him and turned to look at him.  For a moment they looked at each other.  And the evangelical simply said, “what?”.

With that the flood gates broke;  “I just don’t understand how you can care about people, about creation, when it is going to Hell around you.  It just seems to me that it is like fiddling while Rome burns. I am a Doctor and research scientist by training, and I can tell you with certainty how we are headed for disaster.  This is something I have studied in depth and know with certainty.  It is the simple truth.  There is no denying that we are conducting an uncontrolled experiment on the one planet we have with disastrous effects.  Our brave men in our military, who will be on the front lines of climate wars, know that climate change (you can read their report on it), will destabilize nations around the world as refugees flee the effects of climate change causing wars, famine and disease.  Pulling out of the Paris Peace Accords was a crime against humanity and the President’s pride at being the number one producer of fossil fuels in the world in his speech the other night, while the oceans begin to drown whole peoples in the Pacific was callous at best and a crime on the scale of the holocaust at worst.  The sound from his fiddle was as loud and ugly as the black soot from a coal mine.”

He paused for a moment and had a moment to think better, saying;  “Sorry if I am rude, but I heard you talking earlier and I feel this passion and want to try to make you understand that this is an urgent issue you need to address.  I can not understand why you would care about the aborted child when you won’t care about the world he/she grows up in.  There I will stop.  I am certain of this problem and effects, and that we all have to act or condemn millions to death and our children to a world of pain and misery.”

There was silence for a moment. Then the Evangelical spoke quietly, asking; “Do you believe in God and the Love of Jesus Christ, His only son?” And he looked at him deeply.

“I believe in humanity, in caring for each other.  I do not believe that Christians possess the whole truth.  The great Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Moslem faiths have as much truth. There is no demonstrable God in control of this universe.  I am a scientist.  The evidence for how life evolved, and man rose out of the primates is as clear as the day is long. God is most probably a delusion we create to make things more understandable and be less afraid and alone.  It is a convenience of evolution that allows us to thrive better, continue and sustain our existence more profitably.”

Looking again into his eyes, quietly the Evangelical continued;  “Then ultimately there is no great plan, there is no long-term specific meaning to life.  Existence is in fact a collection of arbitrary chance.  Even the logic you use to conclude the facts of climate change, and this evolution you speak of is created arbitrarily out of mindless forces of chance.  The morality and crimes you speak of are, eventually, merely a convenience.  There is no reason I should not have any belief I want with any concomitant action as long as I can get away with it, or if I just prefer it.  There should be no basis for you to fundamentally object to my morality for me, except your personal convenience, since ultimately there is no objective judge, no objective meaning, no objective right and wrong.”

Then he looked down at the book and appeared to read; “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

And then the Evangelical was quiet.  

The Good Doctor was both sad and still upset.  He had to make this man understand how important the issue was.  “Surely you do not think that a creator God want us to abuse his Creation?”.  He asked urgently. 

“Is it in God’s hands” whispered the Evangelical with a little longing and a tinge of resignation.

Suddenly the well broke again and the Good Doctor exclaimed;  “But He put it in our hands to care for!” “It is our charge to be good stewards of the earth”, said the doctor loudly, now a little confused where he was arguing from.

The shout made some heads turn and the two men looked down, a little embarrassed, realizing they had disturbed the ground around.

After a moment, quietly again the Evangelical spoke.  “You accept my Truth, the truth that sets you free, and I can act on yours”.

“Love God with all your heart and all your mind” one said from a third table and he picked up his plate took it over to the trash and walked out.

Encounter with my Brother this morning.  He told me that life is the process of completing ourselves in love.  If we look deeper beyond ourselves we see a world of truth.  I hear Him not because He is bigger or older or because society tells me that I should.  And not, as one might naturally, because He can beat me up.  But first because He is there.  Then because I know He cares, and now because I understand He is right.  And the more I understand, the more I listen and hear, the more I know He is special.  He had other brothers of this world.  James.  But He is brother to us all.  I do not seem Him as the father, I do not see Him as the task master teacher.  I see Him as the brother with the Truth in His heart.  The Truth of God.  The Truth of all meaning.  The Truth of love.  The Love that Laid down its life.

Thank you Brother, I love you.