Love our neighbour as you love yourself

When Mehmet saw the little body floating at the water’s edge he said, “Dear God, I hope he’s alive.” When he found that Aylan had died he said he felt crushed deep down inside. Aylan’s mother, Rehan, and brother, Gylip, had also died. Only his father, Abdullah, survived and he has now returned to his home town of Kobane in Syria to bury his loved ones in the “Martyrs’ Cemetery.”

The tragic pictures of one little boy who died have made real to many people the desperate plight of thousands of families who have left their homes to set off on a long and dangerous journey to find a place of safety. The town of Kobane has been reduced to rubble and the people have witnessed the barbarism of IS who have killed hundreds of men, women and children in their homes and in the streets. Abdullah wanted to protect his wife and two little boys and to take them to a place where they could live in peace. Tragically, in the attempt to do this, he has lost them all.

How do we respond to this situation? Our news reports tell us about anonymous and faceless “migrants”. Some simply see them as just a big problem. In reality most of them are people like Abdullah and his family. They are our fellow human beings; people like us who, through no fault of their own, have been caught up in a terrible war that has destroyed their homes and communities and put their very lives at risk? When one man was asked why he wanted to come to Britain he said, “Because the people there are kind and good.” God has given us two great commandments. The first is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The second is, “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” Jesus taught that all our fellow humans are our neighbours. So when we ask how to respond to the families fleeing for safety, God’s answer is straightforward. He tells us to put ourselves in their situation and ask, “If I and my family were in that situation, how would I want people to help me?” Then it is very clear what we must do.