Weekly Reflection - 5/20/24

St. Mary's Reflection: Lynne Dombrowski, Vestry Member

There is no ‘they’, only ‘us’.
We are part of a large fellowship called the human race.

This above-quoted phrase has been popping into my head lately when I am watching or reading the news. It is disturbing to me how often people today are actively promoting hate in our society by demonizing other groups of people because of their skin color, their ethnic background, their sexual orientation, or their religious beliefs. I discovered that the quote is part of a larger statement made by the author, spiritual leader, and politician Marianne Williamson. However, to me this quote succinctly represents Jesus’ message to us about the expanse of God’s people and who is our “neighbor.”

As a child, I learned “The Golden Rule” which was to treat others the same way that you want to be treated by them. Then there was the story that Jesus told about the Good Samaritan where he taught us to love and care for our neighbor. But Jesus did something even more radical in that parable by choosing a Samaritan and not a Jew to be the person showing mercy to the victim. In Jesus’ time, the Samaritans were victims of ethnic and religious discrimination by the Jews and were viewed as unworthy, impure, and dangerous. The deeper message here is that Jesus taught us that God’s children, and our neighbors, include not only those in one’s own clan, but also those who may not look the same or have the same beliefs as you, but who are still God’s children capable of showing mercy.

Through his conduct, Jesus also reinforced this message that we are all God’s people, that we are all neighbors. Jesus socialized and ate with those who were outcasts in society, including women, widows, tax collectors, and non-Jews, etc. He thereby demonstrated for us the way to follow God’s will by caring for all humans as our neighbor. Jesus knew that all humans are God’s people. This was a very radical idea then and it remains a radical idea now, more than two thousand years later.

We now have scientific data confirming what Jesus knew all along – that we are all family! In 2003, the completion of the Human Genome Project confirmed that humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level and that the human species evolved from ancestors in Africa. They also established that there is no genetic basis for a distinction by race. Race is a social construct, not genetic. Twenty years have passed since this scientific discovery, and yet we humans continue to waste our time and efforts on hating and discriminating against people who, in truth, are not so different from us after all.

Jesus led the way, and we must follow the path. I will continue trying to live by the Golden Rule, to reject an “us vs. them” perspective, and to center my focus on what I have in common with my neighbors. Will you, as Christians, continue to walk this path with me?

Lynne Dombrowski,

Vestry Member