As I was searching for a scripture text to use with this spring’s second Question-Box sermon, Matthew’s words about the lawyer questioning Jesus came immediately to mind. The lawyer, one of the Pharisees who were known for their strict keeping of the Jewish laws, was trying to trick Jesus into saying something that would get Jesus and his followers into trouble. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest.” Knowing there are over 600 commandments in the Hebrew Bible, this was a good test.

Jesus answered with what became known as the Great Commandment. If we remember anything at all from the teachings of Jesus, if we only remember one thing, this should be it: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment.” That is, this religion business is not just about emotion, or just what you think, but should engage us fully. Then he adds: “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

I want to start with this text because I’ve been thinking about something our guest preacher said two weeks ago. Sudanese Bishop Abraham Nhial made, not in his sermon but in his talk during coffee hour, some pretty politically incorrect statements. The Sudanese war is about economics and politics, but it is also a war of religion. The largely Muslim northern Sudan has been waging war against the largely Christian South Sudan. “Some people in this country accuse me of bigotry, of being a racist, when I say these things,” the bishop said. “But this is the way things are in the Sudan: when Muslims are in the minority, they are for religious toleration; but when they are in the majority, they want their Muslim Sharia law.” Wow, I thought. We don’t hear things like that.

After the Boston Marathon bombings, I heard a seminary dean say, “I pray it’s not a Muslim.” Then we learned it was two Muslims.

With the bishop’s words still ringing in my ears, I heard the news. The Wednesday after he spoke, a British soldier was hacked to death by two Muslim men saying it was a reprisal for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This last Tuesday the World Health Organization withdrew polio-vaccination teams from a Pakistani city after two vaccinators were shot. Conservative clerics in Pakistan have “condemned the polio-eradication campaign as a Western conspiracy to sterilize or poison Muslim children,” according to the Wall Street Journal [5-29-13, A9).

The same day’s paper reported sectarian violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar [A11]. Buddhists!

And Thursday’s paper reported the arrest in Paris of a man for stabbing a soldier who “was likely motivated by radical Islamic beliefs to carry out a terrorist act, even though he had no known connection to violent groups” [WSJ 5-30-13, A11]. Authorities warned of a potential new threat: “people without links to extremist groups who suddenly self-radicalize and turn to politically motivated violence.”

All this suggests that loving your neighbor is facing tough times these days.

What are we to make of it?

When I was searching for scripture readings for a question-box sermon, one of the first passages was from Judges, chapter 11, verse 12: “Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, ‘What is there between you and me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?” That was in the 11th century before Christ. Alas, one could say that there has always been conflict between peoples and probably always will be.

One could hope (and pray) that Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations was wrong, and pray that Muslim and Western clashes are not inevitable.

I remember reading a book about anti-Semitism written by a rabbi. The title of the book was The Christian Problem and he talked about how Christians need to work harder at preventing anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, prejudices among our own people. Something of the same nature could be said about the need for Muslims to rein-in their own Muslim extremists, to work at educating and moderating those folks attracted to radical groups. I haven’t said much about this because I know full well how unable we Christians have been at moderating those like the Westboro Baptist Church with their anti-gay protests at army funerals.

But here’s the thing: I found exactly what I was hoping to see. There is a group called The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.( Its website is ispu.org.) There is a fascinating article on how the Boston Marathon bombers’ thinking was wrong, from a Muslim perspective. Here are a few lines:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bomb suspects, reportedly wrote that“an attack against one Muslim is an attack against all” on the wall of the boat in which he was hiding from police last month. Variations of this refrain seem to be common among angry young Muslim men, especially those who are attracted to violence. However, such a view ignores history, religious thinking and contemporary reality. It should be seen as a crass advertising slogan rather than a declaration of belief.

Tsarnaev's quote seems to be based on the idea of a global Muslim community, called the ummah, that has always been aspirational. The Tsarnaev brothers clearly felt that they were being marginalized, and the fact that they did not belong to an American Muslim community further reinforced that belief. So the brothers turned to the idea of the ummah, a historical fiction that has not existed in practice in all of Muslim history. Muslims are too varied to connect to one way of being a community.…

However, the slogan worked its magic, allowing them to see aspiration as reality and one that they could achieve. Unfortunately, their nemesis became America, including the millions of Muslims living in America....

Even in the modern period, we see al Qaeda slaughtering thousands upon thousands of Muslims. Tsarnaev may have felt aggrieved by attacks on Muslims, but he sided with a group that wantonly kills other Muslims. He believed the false assumption, shared by extremists and Islamophobes, that one cannot be American and Muslim.

There are other speeches and articles like “A War without Bombs: Civil Society Initiatives Against Radicalization in Pakistan.” This is wonderful stuff. I’m delighted that these responsible, reasonable people took my suggestion and ran with it – even before I had the idea.

The Jews have a wonderful phrase – tikkun olam – to heal the world. Our world needs healing more than ever, simply because our capacity to do damage extends so far beyond what Jephthah and the Ammonites could do to each other 3000 years ago. The only way to have healing that lasts is for reasonable people to educate our young to stop creating cycles of revenge. And maybe learn to love our neighbors.