On Monday, my local Joplin neighbors witnessed a mosque burning to the ground. Authorities suspect foul play. This is the second time the mosque has been on fire this summer, the first happened on — you guessed it — July 4th. The Joplin Globe featured a picture of Imam Lahmuddin weeping, adding in a sidebar that people of other faiths in Joplin reacted with sorrow and disgust that such a thing would happen in a community that cares so much for one another.

Though there are generous, wonderful people in this community (as seen during and since the tornado), there are also people of great hate and selfishness. Despite those bad eggs, my friends, neighbors and I refuse to neglect our work of hospitality. As someone who tries to follow Jesus, I build and maintain friendship with Muslims. I learn their language instead of insisting that they learn mine. I eat their food and cook them some of my own–hold the bacon.

Why?

Because Jesus said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Even if Muslims were my enemies (which they are not) they are also my neighbors. They live, like African Americans before them, on the other side of the street, the other side of the tracks, the other side of the state, the other side of this nation, the other side of our world. Neighbor-love involves taking someone from the other side and sharing a meal, offering them the comfort and protection of my home.

That thinking is fixing a community wrecked by disaster in record time, not arson. Jesus taught me to love my neighbors and my enemies. Those commands are the same to me because so often, neighbors and enemies are one in the same. It’s our next-door-neighbors who take the most effort to love. We don’t get to chose our neighbors on the global level and, if we’re living holistic lives, we must refuse to choose them on the local level as well. We must not fence ourselves off from one another–Dearborn, Michigan taught me that. In Dearborn, my Iraqi and Lebanese and Yemene friends all sit on their front porches and share tea late into the evening, watching their children run back and forth across the street without a care. Whatever happened to front-porch America? I’ll tell you what happened. She hides in corners of the empire, waiting to break out in a revolution of neighborly love.

So I will keep loving my Muslim neighbors here in Joplin, building friendships with them just like I do with my Jewish neighbors – I visit their synagogue as often as possible. I may disagree with their politics or theology, but I refuse to respond in violence. In my experience, a conversation over a good bowl of mensef or plate full of matzah fixes more problems than bombs.

To the ignorant man or woman who burned down the mosque where my friends worship: you are my neighbor, my enemy, and I will try to love you in spite of your act of terror.

PS & Update > As proof of the continued neighbor-love of Joplin, people of other faiths organized a benefit for the mosque. If you’d like to go, sign up for the event on Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/416571625044618/