Beyond pack animals

As humans, we are pack animals. And we look after those who are in the pack. This is easy work: we invite them round to dinner, pay for their school fees, help out when they are in a tough spot. This is just being human; it’s just being a pack animal.

It is quite another thing to love someone outside of the pack. I have been reading Hana Assafiri’s book, The Audacity to be Free, and in it she talks about the beginnings of her restaurant, the Moroccan Soup Bar. Hana is a Muslim woman who used her experience of domestic violence to help other Muslim women escape similar situations. She creates the Moroccan Soup Bar to give women a source of income, and a supportive environment to enable them to be free. In her book, she tells of one evening when a man sitting at a table with his friends opens up a can of beer. “I’m very sorry,” she tells him, “but we don’t have alcohol here.”

“What?!” he explodes. “Are you going to set up an Islamic State then, and impose your laws on everyone?”

Hana responds by giving the man his meal for free. In her book, she said that she simply decided to fight ignorance and hatred with love and generosity. The man can’t believe it, and is so taken by Hana’s loving act that he later invites all his friends to come and dine.

It is easy to love those inside the pack, but it is a marker of true depth to extend kindness to someone who is actively hostile.

The story reminds me of the one we will read on Sunday (Luke 10:25-37). A religious scholar wants to know, “Who is my neighbour”. In other words, who am I required to extend care and kindness to? And Jesus tells him a story about a man who is well and truly outside ‘the pack’. Not one of us. Someone that the religious scholar was likely to feel repulsed by. And guess what – it is this outsider who is the one who extends radical care and kindness.

God’s abundant love knows no bounds. And sometimes it is someone from outside our ‘pack’ who shows us what this love looks like.

Words by Rev Andreana

Image by Aldo Houtkamp, Unsplash