A Common Enemy

So I’m watching the show Intervention tonight and a relative of the featured drug addict says to another relative, “You know, this is the first time we’ve ever been united in something.” They were united against drug addiction.

I was talking to a girl at Bethlehem University last semester and asked, “What’s the ratio of Christian students to Muslim students here?” The girl quickly answered that they didn’t label one another “Christian” or “Muslim”; they were all just “Palestinian”. They were united against occupation.

We all remember 9-11. For however long it lasted, the people of our country united against terrorism.

I find it interesting that what unites people is a common enemy. Whether that enemy is Hitler or an opposing sports team, it seems as if the only thing that can unite enemies is an even bigger enemy. In fact, I remember asking myself last semester what could possibly unite Palestinians and Israelis. My friend Toni and I concluded that peace between them would be possible if aliens from another planet came to destroy all of human kind and the only way we could survive was if we all worked together against them.

I read a great book by Brother Andrew a couple years ago in which he records his conversations with prominent leaders of both Hamas and Hezbollah. To many Christians in America (and to me at the time), the fact that he even talked to them sounded shocking. Aren’t they dangerous? Aren’t they the enemy? The conversations shook me with the realization that these men were…men. They had beliefs and convictions, families and things in the world that they cared about. They were different…and yet strangely similar. It’s uncomfortable to have enemies with whom you can relate. Maybe that’s why we so easily dehumanize our “enemies”. Brother Andrew then reminded his readers of Paul’s words in Ephesians. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

I can remember playing the card game “Phase 10” with my mom and brother many years ago. Somehow a rivalry broke out between my brother and I where I would skip him every chance I had and he would skip me every chance he had. We were so concentrated on beating each other that we missed the fact that we were both losing to our mom. She won.

Do you think that’s what we’re doing? Losing to a forgotten enemy? So I’m just pondering to myself…what if we were to all unite against the one, true enemy in existence?