What Keeps Us from Letting Others Become Part of Our In-Group?

At a ‘dismantling racism’ seminar recently, the speaker had us focus on our shared values, our shared belief systems and then from that we could break down barriers. People familiar with debate (the legitimate form of it) realize that you can’t win by attacking the others; you win by finding common ground and then finding the nugget that shifts the perspective. In business, we know we can solve a lot of performance issues if we don’t focus on the people, but on the problem, i.e. the poor results of the performance and its root causes (very rarely is it a people-problem).

Our problem though is that we too often think in terms of zero-sum. If ‘they’ get a win, make some progress, get an advantage or something else that ‘we’ want, it means we lose, slip back, own a disadvantage or we have to settle for what we can get instead of what we want. Often, it’s power. We humans have a hard time relinquishing power...especially if we worked hard to get it. We have a hard time relinquishing attention or recognition.

The better among us can. In a book Those People, the author recounts many stories of courage, stamina and faith among the homeless and poor. Often they can look beyond their circumstances to caring for others—e.g. a person with stage 4 cancer more concerned for the grandchildren. Those of us in less vulnerable circumstances have a hard time giving away a few precious minutes to help someone. Remember the Good Samaritan story. Apparently it’s been duplicated on a seminary campus. The more hurried, the least likely a seminarian was likely to help—even though the values were not in question. And presumably not the person’s ethics or character. What is most striking about the parable that Christ teaches is not that a merchant helped a person who had been beaten to the brink of death, robbed and left naked. Or that the religious types didn’t help. What is striking is that it’s one of ‘those people’ who did help at the risk of his own safety—the Samaritan didn’t know if the muggers weren’t around. The Samaritan in Christ’s time was like a Muslim in America today—kind of sharing a similar religion but his religion was ‘wrong’. Even though the Samaritan/Muslim helped the victim, he would have no idea if this person was a fellow Samaritan/Muslim (a member of the out-group like himself) or a Jew (part of the in-group); the victim was naked and unconscious so his clothing nor his speech would help identify which tribe he was a member of. But the Samaritan/Muslim not only extended immediate care but promised the innkeeper that he would fulfill any financial obligations in a month’s time.

We often look down on those in a different socioeconomic class, job position, neighborhood, religion, etc. and forget that we are supposed to be their neighbor. Even if we think they’re an enemy, Christ calls us to love them, pray for them and bless them. Can you love, pray for and bless your ‘enemies’?