on defining neighbor (or shoeboxes and Samaritans, literally and figuratively)
This weekend was a marathon of sorts, moving from one activity to another. Saturday night I joined 15 other folks from church and we made our way to the Operation Christmas Child Processing Center on the southside of Atlanta, strangely enough, about 2 miles from where Jen grew up.
For the uninitiated, Operation Christmas Child is a ministry of Samaritan's Purse , a non-profit ministry founded by Franklin Graham, the most aesthetically similar child to Billy Graham. The idea is to take an average size shoe-box, fill it up with Christmas knick-knacks and goodies to send to a child overseas who has never, or at least rarely, received a Christmas present. Millions of boxes are sent to Ghana, Bulgaria, and the other ends of the earth. Then they go to a drop-off point, and ultimately a distribution center, hence my whereabouts in the latter hours of Saturday evening.
The logistics behind the thing are mind-boggling, particularly since over 80% of the workforce is volunteer labor. A lady across from me was from Arkansas, her church making the trip to work just two shifts at the center before making the 10-hour trek back home.
We were in the pre-sort line, where we supposed to examine the content of each box and look for a card or check that might contain the requested donation of $7 per box shipping fee, then rubber-band the box and artfully stack it on a palette of other boxes of like and un-like size. (This feat alone is impressive, and given the way myself and a fellow church-member were stacking, I instantly understood the whole Tower of Babel fascination--I was sad when they wouldn't let us make it more than 6 feet tall.)
It was not our job to remove "inappropriate items" though I wish it had been. There was no shortage of oddities, from a plastic American flag to toy soldiers and an action figure Jesus. I drew solace in knowing there was another well-oiled assembly line of volunteers ready to complete the task. After the first flashlight I saw, I immediately got excited---what if someone put a hand-crank LED flashlight in the box? That could do some real good for the child and his family? Which instantly sent me into a Willy Wonka Workshop of sustainability--flashlights and water purification tablets, seeds and-wait, no seeds through customs...I would have to think about this. Sewing kits? Shoes and sandals? The possibilities seemed endless, though I'm sure the kids would still prefer a few dollar-store toys and a coloring book or two.
About halfway through our shift (8ish) we were all told to stop what we were doing and hold a box. They said to think about the child receiving that box and to pray silently over it. Then the lady with the microphone told a disturbing story. She said there was a Russian boy named Arthur who received a shoe-box and was part of the "Shoe-box Club" that the national ministry had set-up as an after-school program. Arthur stayed for the club one afternoon, but went to a small school in Beslan in North Ossetia when it was seized by Chechen rebels. Arthur was among the 186 children killed in the massacre in 2004. She went on to say he had recently completed a page at the Shoe-box Club saying he knew Jesus and he knew he would live with Jesus in heaven.
She finished the story and, in the midst of a 250,000 square foot warehouse you could hear a pin drop. Sensing the awkwardness of the moment, she said something like "Arthur's in heaven with Jesus" then uttered the interrogative "Amen?", inspiring a round of half-hearted clapping before calling on another volunteer director to pray.
It was quiet because for a second the weight of it all came down to one child. There was an unease as people's theologies tried to catch up with their souls. Everyone tried to resist the implications a broken theology--the eternal fates of the other 185 children who may or may not have been in Shoe-box Club and who may or may-not have written about their faith. And I don't think a single person, in that moment, expected any of those other unnamed children to be anywhere other than where Arthur is. Which was ironic, in a way, because it seems to undermine the nature of the evangelistic arm of the shoe-box. It was never uttered, but the brokenness of humanity and of our own theology was suddenly laid bare in a point of connection with another human being known only by his first name and the sense that maybe we don't have it all figured out. And that God must know the names of those other children too.
I had forgotten until recently that Jesus offers the story of the Good Samaritan as a response to a question. The question is "Who is my neighbor?" to which Jesus responds "A man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho..." For the preacher, the temptation is to use the Samaritan as a paper-doll of our own bigotry, to be adorned with whatever dress, means or lifestyle we malign. In my last post I referenced Martin Luther King's words on the topic.
The real answer that Jesus gives is "everyone is your neighbor." When the Pharisees and the legalists ask "To whom should we show this love you speak about?" Jesus says "Humanity."
As people created in God's image, on our best day, we know in the core of our being that we are connected to something greater. We know that the tragic death of Arthur comes from a culture of conflict and war that we are connected to, so we grieve. We can empathize with anyone, in any situation, regardless of language and cultural barriers.
This is God's gift to us--that we might know and care for one another in the same way the Creator of all things cares for us. And we could lose it in this busy season if we're not careful.
Beneath the honking horns and angry eyes,
the furrowed brow and the up-turned smile,
may we see the spark of our Creator
who first loved us for love of neighbor.
