5. THOU SHALT DISCOVER AND EMPHASIZE COMMON GROUND WHITHERSOEVER THOU CANST.
There’s an amazing story in 2 Kings 5. Elisha, the Jewish prophet, brings God’s healing to Naaman, a Syrian military commander. After the healing, he says, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.” But then he asks whether he can be forgiven for continuing to kneel in the temple of Rimmon, a Syrian god. Elisha responds, “Go in peace.” It’s a fascinating case of tolerance in a sacred book that is often blamed for intolerance.

But there are two other fascinating details in the story that are relevant to our concerns here. Naaman asks Elisha, “Please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry.” It seems that he wants to take a load of soil so that he can spread it in his own property, a very literal expression of “common ground.” Elisha obliges.

Then Elisha’s servant, a Jew named Gehazi, engages in some rather shabby religious corruption, and we have a great case of the outsider, Naaman, being seen as a better man than the insider, Gehazi. This pattern is actually quite common in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures: there are many “righteous outsiders” like Naaman, including Melchizedek, Jethro, Ruth, Uriah, the Magi, and the Roman centurion. In this way, we see people in the Scriptures honoring the goodness in outsiders and admitting the shabbiness in their own clan. Whatever our religion, we have our share of heroes and villains, people to take pride in and people to be embarrassed about. We are being faithful to the Biblical narrative when we continue the tradition of honoring common ground – places where we agree, and shared strengths and weaknesses.

6. THOU SHALT WORK WITH THY NEIGHBOR FOR THE COMMON GOOD.
When the Jewish people were exiled in Babylon, it would have been easy to pout and grouse in bitterness or react in revenge. But Jeremiah is given this message for the people: “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (29:7). In other words, cooperate with the people who are of a different religion than you – who are, in fact, your oppressors – in seeking the common good of peace and prosperity.

In today’s world, the need for this kind of collaboration is more obvious than ever. If Christians, Jews, and Muslims decide to tip the world into a sea of empire and terrorism, offense and retaliation, attack and counter-attack, nuclear bombs will soon be flying and war and destruction rather than peace and prosperity will be our common lot. While we’re fighting, environmental crises and the growing gap between rich and poor push us farther and farther from peace and prosperity for anyone.³

A few months ago, I was visiting a Muslim country where it is illegal to convert from Islam or to proselytize Muslims. A Christian woman in the country decided to join a group of Muslim women working against domestic violence and for equal rights for women. They were shocked that a Christian would want to join an organization that had the word “Muslim” in its name. She explained, “I’m a woman, and I’m a citizen of this country, so I want to help. If I only help Christian women, I’m helping a tiny minority of the population. So I am grateful you have accepted me into your group so we can work together.” She exemplifies the “sixth commandment,” as do Christians who join with members of other religions in fighting against injustice, racism and poverty, in caring for the poor and those ravaged by disease and natural disaster, or working to heal our planet of the damage we have done to it in recent centuries.

7. THOU SHALT SERVE THY NEIGHBOR IN PRACTICAL WAYS.
For all of us who are called “Christian,” we need to see our identity formed less around denominational distinctives and more around the great commandment to love God and neighbor. And we need to learn from Jesus (John 13) and Paul (Galatians 5:6, 14) that love is expressed in service. If we show compassion through service of our neighbor – whether she is Buddhist or Hindu, Shiite or Sunni, Wiccan or whatever – Jesus sees our actions as being done to him. Similarly, our failure to feel compassion and translate it into service will be seen as a failure of love to Jesus.

There are hundreds of commands in the Hebrew Scriptures. They are reduced to three by the prophet Micah: seeking justice, doing kindness, and walking humbly with God. They are reduced to two by Jesus: loving God and neighbor (which, for Jesus, includes the enemy as well). Paul, interestingly, reduces the two to one (Romans 13:9), as does James (James 2:1-8). Every religion believes in caring for its own, the insiders, but from the story of the good Samaritan to his parable about the mustard seed to his own death as an outsider, Jesus makes it clear that his way, unlike conventional religion, judges its effectiveness based on the benefits it brings to non-adherents.

8. THOU SHALT PROTECT THY NEIGHBOR FROM DANGER AND INSULT.
My Aussie friend Dave Andrews was a missionary in India. When a political assassination inflamed inter-religious hatred between Hindus and Sikhs, Dave immediately thought of his Sikh neighbors. He and a friend went over to their home to see if they could help them, but a crowd of angry Hindu youth had already gathered and were preparing to burn down the Sikh home with its residents inside. Dave knew that he was risking his life, but he realized at that moment that if he wasn’t willing to act like Jesus, what right did he have to proclaim Jesus as Lord? So he stepped between the crowd and the front door of the house, and eventually the crowd calmed and dispersed with their gasoline cans unopened. He was acting toward a member of another religion exactly as Jesus would.⁴

For twenty years, Christians in Southern Sudan suffered horribly under an oppressive government, but few people came to their aid. A few years ago, Christians in Southern Sudan made an appeal to a group of us: “Almost nobody stood up for us when we were in need, but now, please come to the aid of our Muslim neighbors in Western Sudan in their time of need.” So we planned five public demonstrations (we called them “Worship in the Spirit of Justice”) to draw attention to the genocide in Darfur. We invited people of other religions to join us (in the spirit of the sixth commandment above). The best preacher in our five weeks was Rabbi David Sapperstein. He said that the Jewish experience of genocide in the Holocaust was a call for Jewish people to stand with any group, through all of history, who faced genocide. I remember thinking, “The suffering of Jesus makes a similar call on followers of Jesus. We must stand with any group suffering, in Jesus’ name.”

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