It is an age-old question.  What do you do with the other, the one who doesn't look like, or talk like, or believe like, or vote like, you?  All of us feel safer and certainly more comfortable, with people we know, and if we can't be with people we know, then we'll settle for people we at least understand, people who seem to be more like us.

Life, however, has a way of putting us in situations that aren't so comfortable.  We find ourselves in a world filled with "others," people who are NOT like us, people whose ways, perhaps, we do not even understand.  So, the question becomes: How do you overcome your discomfort in the presence of the other?

One historical answer is brutally simple.  Uncomfortable with the other?  Get rid of him or her or them or, better yet, all of them, or at least tuck them away somewhere out of sight.  Genocide, apartheid, and segregation are attempts at this, but we also do it more subtly and insidiously. Through stereotyping and prejudiced assumptions we convince ourselves that the "other" is best avoided.  If you can't keep them away from you, then at least you can keep your distance from them.

So, what do you do with the other?  The answers can be brutal, but there is another thread that runs through our history as well.

I'll admit the Old Testament includes some pretty bloody solutions to the other, but in the Mosaic law we hear another voice: " The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God" Lev. 19:34).  And Jesus who identified himself with all kinds of "others," would say, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35).  And Paul seemed to specialize in the question of the other, spending most of his letter-writing career urging Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, men and women, to love one another in the Spirit of Christ.  In fact, compassion for the other was for Paul the ultimate gift of the Holy Spirit, and how we welcome the other is our most profound Christian witness to the world.

In secular America, we talk a lot about tolerance-the acceptance of, and respect for, the other-but Todd L. Pittinsky of Harvard University has argued that tolerance is but a way station between prejudice and true community.  Tolerance deals with the surface of things.  Sometimes it can feel forced and artificial or, if you prefer, "politically correct," whitewashing or ignoring differences rather than facing them, and, as Pittinsky points out, tolerance often collapses when hard times hit.  What is required for genuine transformation, Pittinsky argues, is allophilia, "love of the other."  Sound familiar?

Pittinsky cites a powerful example.  The decision in Nazi Europe to protect and shelter Jews, he points out, required a courage that went beyond tolerance or even political or ideological beliefs.  It required love.

The truth is that getting along in this world, day by day, encounter by encounter, requires the same.  The Bible has told us that all along.

In a culture increasingly polarized, we Christians find ourselves back where we began.  " Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love" (1 John 4:7-8).  Now, figuring out just how to live into that can take a while ... or a lifetime.  I guess that's why we spend so much time in Bible study, prayer, and worship around here.