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Sunday, September 12, 2010

A real Interfaith Moment

A friend posted this on Facebook and I just had to share. In my opinion, this is how all Christians should be living out the teachings of Jesus. The saying "love your neighbor" comes from the story of the Good Samaritan.

25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[c]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[d]"

28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

30In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."


-Luke 10:25-37

14 comments:

Stephanie said...

I saw this video on FB also. Just yesterday on 9/11 I attended an inter-faith event. I'm planning on becoming much more active in the inter-faith community inshallah. I really think the idea of inter-faith is the direction we should be looking in these times.

Umm Omar said...

wow, that is so awesome!

Umm Omar said...

wow, that is so awesome!

Susanne said...

What's so great is that the "neighbor" was really an "enemy" since the Jews and Samaritans *really* disliked each other. So in reality Jesus defined the word neighbor in a pretty radical way! :)

Stacy K. said...

@Susanne, You're completely right! I was going to add something about us also being called to even love our enemies(Matthew 5 if anyone's interested), but Layla woke up as I was writing the post.
People like Terry Jones are completely missing the point.

caraboska said...

Bismillah. Brings tears to my eyes. God has never given me the opportunity to participate in something quite so large-scale, but we can do that at home too. If a Muslim friend comes to visit, we can educate ourselves about halal food to make sure there is something appropriate available to feed them, we can figure out which way to Mecca from our location, provide a clean prayer mat (and even put pets in the kitchen during prayer times so they won't inadvertently walk in front of the person during the prayers). Heck, we can even get down on our knees next to our friend when prayer time comes and quietly say our own prayers.

caraboska said...

PS And if the person is just temporarily in town, so that they may not have the exact prayer times for our location available, we can go online and get the prayer times. We can even download prayer software to our computer so they can hear the adhan. We can provide a fresh towel so they can wash up before prayers. I think this kind of attention to detail is appreciated, and God knows it is an honor to provide it...

Dee said...

I love those kinds of Christians!
Bismillah erahman eraheem

"and thou shall certainly find those to be nearest in affection to them who say, ‘We are Christians.’ This, because some of them are priests and monks, and because they are free from pride.” (Quran 5:85)

Aspiring Mu'minah said...

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Safiyyah said...

Greetings!

I know some wonderful Christians!

Anonymous said...

asalaamu alaikum

this doesnt have to do with this post but...I found a video of you on YouTube speaking Somali on a Somali weblog. Ohmygoodness...your incredibly awesome...mashallah...you even impressed the Somalis who watched it.

mashallah!!! Do a post on how you learnt the language-like, really...how did you? Thats awesome. mashallah!

Stacy K. said...

@Umm Ibrahim,

w alaykum assalaam,

Glad you enjoyed the video! I started learning Somali from my co-workers back in 2003. I had one co-worker who was especially helpful, and 2 others who were brothers and introduced me to their entire extended family. I was basically at the level of fluency I am now about 3yrs later. I learned phrases more than just vocab, and eventually I just understood the way the language worked and how to put sentences together.I don't really know how to explain it better than that. If you're looking for a book, I did use Martin Orwin's book as well as learning on my own. Another helpful thing in language learning is to get bilingual children's books if they are available at your library.

Anonymous said...

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Ciyaalka Xaafadda said...

Wishful thinking, perhaps? :)

One may only have one religion, in doing so, it's mandatory to repudiate all others. That is a "faith."