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“Who are my mother and my brothers?” [Jesus] asked. – Mark 3:33 (NIV)
Our sister religion, Islam, has a counterpart to Pope Francis’s Laudato Si called Al-Mizan. Both uplift a holy ecology—a complete interconnection of all things one to the other—and argue for environmental action. One religion complementing another! A sister agreeing with a brother!
Al-Mizan means balance and reciprocity. The Quran describes all beings as integrated and interdependent. “Nothing is created wantonly or in vain. All are created in truth and for right, and each has rights on us, that we care for it,” said Othman Llewellyn, a scholar and lead author of the environmental covenant.
The Pope loves it. My sister loves it. I love it.
In our shared concern for the environmental crisis, interfaith kinship is obvious. In war, especially a war between regions largely defined by religion, our kinship is easily estranged.
If you are estranged from one of your children or know someone who is, you have a front row seat on God. God is estranged from God’s children. That’s why God sent Jesus, to say one more time what it means to be a human.
We need not remain estranged and orphaned from one another. We live in a self-made hell until we learn how to break up the fights between 5- and 7-year-olds the way any good parent does: “I don’t care who started it.” Yahweh said, Stop fighting. Jesus wondered, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” That is not a sappy thought. That means that we are to love our enemies and be good to those who hurt us. That is a family values thought.
When we’re ready for our doctorate in being a human, we learn to love our enemies and are good to those who hurt us.
Prayer
God our Father, Jesus our Brother, all people our siblings! Interconnected and valuable! Wow. Amen.
About the AuthorDonna Schaper is Interim Minister at the United Congregational Church of Little Compton. Her latest book is Remove the Pews.