Our team met with one of the two top Shiite clerics in the world. We went to learn, to love and to pray in the name of Jesus—and to testify of our faith in Him. After weaving around the town, apparently so we could never find his place again even if our life depended upon it, we came to his home/headquarters and were met by armed guards who frisked us and whisked us through a metal detector. After that process was over, the whole atmosphere was actually quite friendly and peaceful!
This elderly and scholarly sheik (elder/leader) came into the room into which we had been ushered and greeted us. He began by telling us the essence of what he preaches to the followers of their branch of Islam. (It was later confirmed to us by people “in the know” that this is indeed what he preaches in the mosques.) He was very courteous and calmly philosophical about the hope they have for living noble God-respecting lives. They believe in promoting human rights, living in peace with their neighbors, holding to a high moral ethic, helping the needy and giving respect to people of all ethnic groups and faiths other than their own. He also spoke of how they don’t believe in “controlling” people, but in educating them to have self-control. After he ran down the list of their essential tenets of life and spirituality, it was our turn to speak.
I was sitting very close to him and was the first in our company to speak up. I told him that we wanted him to know that we truly grieve over how, from time to time, in history, professed Christians have used force and violence “in the name of Jesus” to allegedly further His cause. He responded by thanking me and then saying, “I apologize to you for the times that Muslims have also used violence “in the name of Islam”. It was a stunning moment for us as some stereotypes seemed to be crumbling through these simple and sincere confessions. (For some reason, I have always presumed that Muslims, in general, justified the use of violence in the spreading of their religion. Lord, help us to remember that no one deserves to be stereotyped.) There is a lot of historical and cultural “baggage” that has attached itself to the public images our respective faiths and we have to cut through more than genuine theological differences in order to touch hearts and exchange ideas and beliefs as fellow humans who are created in the image and likeness of our Creator.
When we asked him what he wanted us to communicate to our friends in the West, he replied, “Tell them that we are not terrorists (an allegation that has obviously wounded his heart deeply) and that they need to follow Jesus with all their hearts.” This seemed more than fair to me. By the way, he was the first leader in the world who openly and publicly condemned (apparently within minutes) the attack on America by Islamic extremists on 9/11.
After 1700 years of the influence of “Christendom” in the world, it’s going to take more than religious rhetoric and theological debate to touch the hearts of the peoples of the Holy Land. Who knows what Jesus might yet do in the Middle East if believers are willing and enabled to incarnate His presence and move by His Spirit as we reach out to show the love of the Father in practical ways? People don’t “care to know” what we stand for until they “know we care” about them as fellow humans under God. The Great Commission can only be fulfilled by the spirit of the Great Commandment being incarnated within and “excarnated” through the lives of genuine followers of Jesus the Christ.
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