Are We Willing To See the Person Behind the Problem?

I had a neighbor that was absolutely awful. It got to the point that people were in and out of her house all day, our kids could not play in the front yard for fear of what they would hear or see, and someone calling the police became a regular occurrence. I was mad. I was really mad at this person who brought so much drama, fear and difficulty into our peaceful lives. I became so angry that it began to affect my outlook on the world and how I related to people in general. I knew that a change needed to be made but was not sure how to begin. One day, I encountered my neighbor on the front stoop that we shared. I looked into her eyes, and they were hurt and sad. That night I realized that there is a person behind the frustrating situation and I strongly felt that God was calling me to pray for her. I was reminded that Jesus loves my neighbor and when he looks into her eyes he sees the potential of who he desires her to be. I cannot see it because it is so deeply covered in the life she is living, but that does not matter. I am called as a Christian to see her with Jesus’ eyes and pray for every part of her life. When I recognized that my neighbor is a woman just like me trying her best to survive and thrive, I saw her in a new way. She is a daughter, a sister, a mother, and a woman. She is the result of her upbringing and whatever she has faced in her life. She wants to be happy like I want to be happy. I am sure that if I knew her story, my heart would break. I did begin to pray for her and out of this experience I learned a valuable lesson. When encountering a situation that we don’t like, look for the person behind the problem in order to make the best response possible.

I think of this experience every time I turn on the news and see the headlines. I see groups of people being discussed as general categories. The fact that these are individuals with stories seems to be forgotten. The people involved have faces, personalities, stories, histories, hopes and dreams. They are like you and I and we could so easily be in their place. One example of this is the migrant caravan that is slowly making its way north through Mexico. This story has been in the headlines and the United States military has been sent to guard our southern border. In an article by the New York Times, it is said that the size of the caravan is estimated at more than 7,000 men, women and children. They began by swimming or rafting across a river to get from Guatemala to Mexico. Many of the people are from Honduras. The families that are traveling have brought their children along. Some as young as only months old. This caravan is said to be headed to the United States, which is why some of our military has been deployed by the President. When hearing about these thousands of people, we can fear, or we can ask why. What is the reason behind these 7000 plus people wanting to reach the United States? Another article on the caravan, written by the BBC, helps answer this. It reports that the people in the caravan are “fleeing persecution, poverty and violence in their home countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.” It began on October 13 and has been growing ever since as more people have joined the journey.

How awful the lives of these people must be for them to leave their homes to make such a long and dangerous journey. I understand that it would be difficult for the United States to take in so many. At the same time, these are people who are fleeing for their lives. I cannot imagine the lives they must have. Again, I also think of what a Christian response in this situation should be. I say this because not only am I a Christian but we hear over and over from our country’s leaders that we are a Christian nation. If we are indeed a Christian nation, shouldn’t we want to have a Christian response? Jesus says in Luke 4 that he was anointed to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind and to set the oppressed free. He also taught that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Throughout his ministry, Jesus stood up for the persecuted, lost, oppressed and those who were seen as unworthy of respect. This idea stood out to me the other day when I was scrolling through Facebook. On a friend’s page, she had shared a post that said, “Real Christians would be waiting for the caravan with food, water, clothing and offering any help needed.” Again, if we are the Christian nation that we like to say we are, our response should be out of a Christian worldview. Perhaps our government, as a civil body, needs to have a political response, but as individuals of a Christian nation, we should seriously consider what our response should be.

Another thing to consider, from a sociologist’s point of view, would be whether the current political response by our President comes out of an institutionalized evil that our country has experienced since the days of slavery. We have a long history as a country of seeing people as less than worthy of rights. In the past, we had racially discriminatory laws in place. Slavery was allowed, women had not rights and were not able to vote. Though we do not still have those laws, many people still act out of the belief that there is a hierarchy of worth between classes of people. People who fit a predetermined status are deemed worthy of respect and those who do not fit the status quo are not. In this case, the migrants are foreign, poor, of other nationalities, and bring nothing that would obviously add to American society. They are only seen as a group that would take our resources.

For those that are shaking their head in disbelief at my suppositions, I would agree if this was the only current situation where I can see this attitude occurring. In response, I give you another. Recently, according to a New York Times article, President Trump has declared that he plans on strictly defining gender as determined by physical characteristics at birth. He is asserting his power and authority to make decisions based on his individual beliefs through his office as President. He is using governmental processes to enact a cultural change. These changes would no longer allow individuals to identify with a gender of choice. This would affect approximately 1.4 million Americans who have had federal recognition and support under laws put in place by President Obama. It would take away civil right protections and recognition of their gender as well as take away protections in health care. Our government is in place to serve and protect its people. These steps that are being taken are doing the exact opposite of that. Again, these are people who desire to live their lives in peace, to be accepted for who they are, to be respected and to be acknowledged for the persons they believe themselves to be. Whether you agree with their value systems or not, they are human beings who deserve protection and support. Again, we need to ask, what should our Christian response to this situation be? As a Christian nation, are we upholding the values that we should? Is this another case occurring out of institutional evil?

There are no easy answers to the questions that I have proposed. The situations above complicated and messy. They are involving real people with real stories. Because of this, they deserve another look and an evaluation of our viewpoints and motives as a country and as individuals. People’s lives and futures are at stake. There is no way of knowing if a child traveling in the midst of the caravan will one day be the scientist who will find an answer to the problem of global warming and save the earth. There is no way of knowing the effect of changing the law to erase the recognition of genders other than male and female. We are not God, and yet so often it seems we want to play God. Instead, we should be willing to look into the faces of the people that are involved, learn their stories, and make humane decisions that protect their person, their dignity and their future. Let us not perpetuate an institutional evil, but instead let us lay it aside for something better. Let us act in a way that gives hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless and follow Jesus’s command to love our neighbors (everyone) as ourselves. Let us look at people and see them as Jesus sees them, with potential to be more than we could ever dream them to be.

References

Averbuch, Maya, and Kirk Semple. “Migrant Caravan Continues North, Defying Mexico and U.S.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/world/americas/migrants-caravan-mexico.html?module=inline.

“Migrant Caravan: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?” BBC News, BBC, 5 Nov. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45951782

Green, Erica L., et al. “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-s