Strangers and Aliens

Today I read the International Sunday school lesson written by Timothy J. Geddert. Geddert  writes for the Sunday school lesson on January 17, 2021, "All Christians are Exiles" (p. 40, Salt and Light, Winter 20-21). Furthermore, he writes, "[Peter] does not know these Christians (from Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 1 Peter 1: 1-2) personally. But he knows the Christian faith and their status as  exiles/pilgrims/sojourners/[aliens] (translations vary).

Mexican Old Order Mennonite children playing in a grain bin.

Coincidentally on the same day (Although Swiss  psychiatrist Carl Jung says there is no such thing as a coincidence), I read a blog post from a Jewish woman who stated: "I grew up worrying about Nazis. I was told again and again how safe my family felt in Germany; how assimilated they were; and how little that mattered in the end. The message was clear: society can turn and the neighbors who you thought were your friends will stand silent as you are pulled from your house at night. Others will spit at your feet. Others will be among the ones pulling you from your house. None of them will help you. In millions of small ways, it was communicated to Jewish children to not let our assimilation and current 'felt' safety allow us to forget the threat. So as jarring as the Nazi iconography and anti-semitic rhetoric on the far right is for us it is also, on some level, not a shock. It is a gut punch that we always anticipate." They need to keep a suitcase ready for the inevitable time when they must leave in a hurry. They feel like strangers and aliens in their adopted homeland. 

The Jewish woman was writing about the unprecedented attack on the nation's capitol on January 6, 2021, with all the Nazi and white supremacist symbols openly displayed by the rioters. My take from her post is that when we become so assimilated to our culture, people of faith can too easily become co-opted by the surrounding culture and be too easily deceived by its lies. Don't "let our assimilation . . .  allow us to forget the threat." 

The analogy of the frog in a pot of hot water is appropriate. I don't know if this is true or not, but the analogy states that as heat is increased in the water, the frog adjusts (assimilates) as the temperature of the water increases to the point that it eventually is killed. 

The Old Colony Mennonites in Mexico work hard to avoid assimilation to the surrounding Mexican culture. They don't allow their women to learn Spanish, and the men only do so in order to transact business with the locals. Planting an apple orchard is frowned upon, because of the number of years it takes for them to mature to make a profit. They need to be ready to pack up and leave at a moment's notice. They feel like strangers and aliens where they live.

My ancestors felt the same in Europe. My Clymer/Clemmer ancestors fled to Switzerland from France because of persecution for their protestant faith. Later they fled to Germany because of their Anabaptist faith and finally to the USA. They felt like strangers and aliens wherever they lived. Now my namesakes are here in the USA for over 300 years. Do we still feel like strangers and aliens, or have we, like the frog, assimilated to the point of our own cultural death?  

I'm not sure I want to be as "[un]conformed to the world" (Rom. 12:2) as the Old Colony Mennonites in Mexico. Yet it is biblical to remember not to assimilate: "For here we have no lasting city," (Heb. 13:14), and "[we are] foreigners and strangers on earth" (Heb. 11:13, et. al.). We belong to the reign of God, not to the reign of Caesar! Jesus is our leader and the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-6) is our constitution. 

The pressures to conform and to assimilate are strong. We are blind to the water boiling around us. How can we avoid total assimilation and death of our faith? How can we live as citizens of the Reign of God instead of the reign of Caesar?