Indifference – “lack of interest, concern or sympathy.”  Oxford languages

Last week, I was at a luncheon. I was standing in a group of women, and one mentioned Savannah Guthrie and what she must be going through. We all agreed that it must be terrible. All of us except for one. The lady said, “But she was so disrespectful to President Trump.”  I just stared at her, not believing my ears…and then I said, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

I thought about her comment a lot and realized that the media had done its job. It had caused her to be indifferent to someone with whom she politically disagreed. Lest we think we are immune to that kind of thinking, we should examine our own hearts.

How many times do we ignore or are indifferent to the suffering of those who oppose our political views? What about those who are different than us, ethnically, racially or religiously? We tell ourselves we don’t hate them, but we certainly can’t muster up any kind of sympathy for their suffering either. Our hearts have become stone cold towards them.

When Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves, he gave us a parable to illustrate it. A man was on a road and was beaten up by robbers. A priest and a Levite passed by, and they both did nothing to alleviate his suffering. A Samaritan stopped and helped the injured man. He took him to an inn and made sure he was well taken care of.

Let’s put it in today’s context. A man is walking in a bad part of Tel Aviv at night. He is beaten up and robbed. He is left for dead. A religious person walks by and turns his head the other way. A lawyer walks by and does the same, wanting to get out of the place as quickly as possible. A Palestinian gets off work, walks by, and stops to help the man. He takes him to a hospital and makes sure he is taken care of. He doesn’t leave until he knows the man will live. 

Who do you think fulfills Jesus’ command to “Love his neighbor?” Obviously, the Palestinian. He was not indifferent to the suffering of the man, and he didn’t care about his race, religion, or ethnicity. 

As believers, we are not called to help everyone in the world. But we are called to care about and not be indifferent to those who are right in front of our eyes. Let us not be taken in by the tribal attitudes of today or the division that is being fostered in the media. We can make a difference if only we will view others with the same humanity we view those in our own circles of reference.

Let’s not justify ourselves and tell ourselves we are okay because we don’t hate them. At least with hatred, there is a level of emotion involved. With indifference, we are devoid of emotion, care, and concern. That should cause us all to take a second look at our stony hearts.

Photo by jhraskon. Courtesy of Pixabay.