I’ve been thinking a lot about the Muslim religion lately. Not just because of the anniversary of 9/11, but also because of some recent acquaintances I’ve made. In a previous post I discussed my newfound belief in unity. I’m all-for a peaceful coexistence between tribes. I relayed in that post the ideal that, “… We can lock arms in love and face [our] enemy with the Word of God.” But can this really happen? Can we actually get to the point where we stop judging people by their outward appearances and beliefs and start accepting them for who they really are: a human being?
I say yes. Yes, we can. When I lived in Brazil, God showed me a lot about this. And I didn’t even put the two together until just now. The man I served is black. His wife is brown. And if you’ve ever seen me in person you know I am really, really white. I sometimes jokingly refer to my skin color as “semi-opaque.” You should have seen the looks we got from people when we went out to eat! And it was during this time in my life that God began talking to me about the difference between a black man and a white man.
In the Bible there is the story of Adam and Eve. They were the first couple; the only first couple. There wasn’t a red couple, a yellow couple, a black couple, and a white couple. There was just one. And they probably weren’t any of the above-mentioned colors. If I had my choice in making a person he’d probably be blue or lavender. In fact, a boy/girl set would be just that: blue and lavender, respectively. Why not? What’s the difference in skin color, anyway? What difference does it make if I am as white as this site’s background, and my friend beside me is as black as this text? Dare I say, none at all?
If the story of Adam and Eve aren’t enough to sway you, perhaps the story of Noah will be. In the days of Noah the world was a lude and vile place (much like it is today.) God couldn’t hold back destruction any longer.
<news-flash>
God didn’t kill the inhabitants of Earth. Jesus said no one has known the Father except the Son, and whoever knows the Son has also known the Father. Would you say Jesus would kill the world with a flood? Of course not. The person with the longest life-span ever is Methuselah; he lived 969 years. And his name means, “When he dies, judgment shall be sent.” The longest-living man ever to live on earth was the calendar for judgment of the world’s evil ways. In preserving his life for so long, God put off the flood for as long as He could; no one ever lived longer than Methuselah. And even then God gave Noah 100 years to preach repentance to the world. God isn’t a God of judgment; He’s a God of mercy. And the same year Methuselah died it started raining.
</news-flash>
So we have this family in a great, big boat: a father and his wife, and their three sons and their wives. Four couples: red, yellow, black, and white, right? I’ve only seen one occasion where a family had children of different color naturally, and it made the headlines. I highly doubt Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth were four different colors. I don’t deny that their bloodlines led to the diversity we see today, but it was a gradual adaptation to climate, not God dividing up humans into four sub-classes. God never intended our segregation.
And this brings me to the Tower of Babel. For those of you who don’t know the story, Egypt wasn’t the first nation to build pyramids. In fact, Sudan has had pyramids for much longer than Egypt has, but Babylon’s date even further back. After the flood, people began to repopulate the earth. They settled into camps, and tribes, and villages, and towns. Eventually there was a nation of people all living together. They had grown so proud of what they’d accomplished that they decided to erect a monument to their own greatness. The Tower of Babel wasn’t some fanatical attempt to be closer to God, as one of my Bible instructors put it. The “heaven” talked about in those verses is referring to the sky.
The Babylonians wanted something so tall that everyone approaching Babel would stand in awe of their might. Also, this tower was probably to be one in a series of towers which reflected the layout of celestial bodies. The pyramids at Giza, along with a few others across Egypt, are arranged perfectly to reflect the Orion constellation, for example. But the whole purpose of this tower was not to create a tomb for their king; it was to show off. They built their kingdom by themselves; they didn’t need God anymore. They had declared a new world order.
God was obviously unhappy with this decision and stopped it by confusing their language. He said of them that nothing is impossible to them because they are one. Unity is a very powerful thing. After their language was confused they began to collect into groups of the same tongue and move out, away from each other, and repopulate the entire earth as God had previously commanded (the same prior disobedience which led to this whole fiasco.) It was then that their similarities began to weaken.
But in the end we are still very much alike. Quoting my aforementioned analogy, if I were as white as this page (which is not that far from the truth) and my friend were as black as this text (which is also not far from the truth), what’s the difference between us, besides skin color? I donate blood every couple of weeks. My blood is no different from anyone else’s who comes in that clinic. And, since my blood type is O+, almost anyone can receive my blood. Furthermore, what if I was in an accident and needed a new kidney? My body could receive a transplant kidney from almost any donor in the world, regardless of skin color. What I am saying is the difference between me and my very black friend is simply that he has a much better tan than I.
Why is it, then, that we find the need to continually separate into cliques and sects, and ostracize folks because of their differences? Perhaps that has been ingrained into our psyche since the Tower of Babel, but repopulating the earth is no longer a top priority (we’ve successfully achieved that goal.) We can quit separating ourselves from people who look different and talk different and act different, and we can start accepting them for who they choose to be. And then we can work together for a common goal.
I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I’ve been thinking a lot about Muslims. Why is it that we are inherently afraid of anyone who has a dark complexion, speaks with a Middle-Eastern accent, and chooses to pray in another language? We instantly label them “Terrorist.” But is that individual going to blow up the plane? Probably not. If we’d choose to see that person as just that: another person, and lay aside for a moment the dogma we’ve been fed by the mainstream media and our hysterical friends, then we might find him to be a very pleasant person to talk to. We might find that we enjoy his company. In fact, we might even discover that he would make a swell friend.
I want you to make me a promise: I want you to promise to on purpose meet someone this week who is nothing like you. Find someone who doesn’t look like you, smell like you, talk like you, or believe like you … and I want you to hold a conversation with them. I want you to actually listen to them; find out what makes them giddy, what makes them dream, what keeps them going amidst the day-to-day doldrums. And then keep up with them. It’s okay to have a friend who isn’t a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or an Atheist. It’s okay to have friends who are different from you. Don’t try to shove your beliefs down their throat; just listen. Perhaps in the end you’ll come out a wiser person.
~Jonathan
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