In a divided world, what does unity look like?

One of my cousins was killed by a stray bullet. He was not part of a gang but got caught in the crossfire of gang warfare. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, in areas where postcodes have a kind of protected status, can be lethal.

The council estates my church serves have similar challenges: one area will be home to some but an exclusion zone to others. One significant factor is an inordinate loyalty to a certain place; when place gives you your ultimate sense of security, you’ll go to surprising lengths to protect it.

For Samaritans in the first century, place was important too. They shared similar heritage to Jewish people (John 4v12) but inordinate loyalties to different places of worship (John 4v20). There were intense conflicts between both groups. In one incident, some Samaritans murdered a Jewish pilgrim, which led to a Jewish mob burning a Samaritan village to the ground.

It’s not that place doesn’t matter. Knowing the borders of your land helps form identity (Numbers 34v1-12) and establish a place of safety (Nehemiah 1-7). Loyalty to place is complex. There are no simplistic solutions to the tensions it can create. These are situations in which we start with lament like the Psalmist, crying “How long O Lord?”

Yet amid the complexity of His day, Jesus proposes a radical solution to the problem of inordinate loyalty to place: not to forget where you are from, but to accept His offer of a passport for another place – the kingdom of God.

Being a citizen of this kingdom means seeing the world more like an Olympic village than one full of opposing camps. It’s worth keeping this in mind amid conversations about national identity.

The Good Samaritan

Jesus was once asked: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10v25). The phrase eternal life is synonymous with the Kingdom of God (Mark 10v17, 23, 26-27). So we could rephrase the question: “What does it mean to be a citizen of the Kingdom?” Jesus answers with the story of a mugged Jewish man ministered to by a Samaritan, using their cultural tension to show the depth of kingdom citizenship.

The Samaritan sees the Jewish man and doesn’t walk by but takes pity on him (v33). He stops and makes himself vulnerable to attack and pours significant resources into transport and rehab (v34). And Jesus says: "Go and do likewise” (v37).

Kingdom citizenship means setting aside external religiosity (v31) or status (v32) and looking beyond place to personhood, serving the other or even being served by them.

On our estate, this means teaching forgiveness in the face of knife crime.

In our multi-ethnic congregation, this means displaying tolerance in the face of political difference.

Above all, it means seeking to share Christ with all who cross our path in the greatest act of mercy we can ever show.

Again, it’s not that place doesn’t matter, but that Christ matters more. Around Him we unite, subordinating our differences for His sake until the day when the gates will never be shut (Rev. 21v25).

This approach is risky. The mercy Jesus showed led to His death on a cross. Today we might fear, for example, the loss of traditions or the dilution of shared stories. But this is not inevitable. And we take the risk because we were just like the mugged man.

Having disobeyed God, we were weak at the side of the road. Jesus saw us, stepped into our cultural moment and healed us for heaven – where no language will be left out of praising His name. Not with wine but blood, clothing us with His righteousness. Now we wait for Him to return to bring in the fullness of the kingdom.

Let’s go and do likewise.