Not In My Family

I read a couple of articles recently describing living conditions in the Middle Eastern city-state of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. Dubai is a very young, very modern city built (and still under construction) by extremely poor foreign workers imported primarily from African and Asian countries. These workers face hellish living conditions and have become a sort of permanent underclass, hidden in plain sight. Here are some excerpts:

"The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.

In their home country Bangladesh or the Philippines or India these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

I met so many men in this position I stopped counting, just as the embassies were told to stop counting how many workers die in these conditions every year after they figured it topped more than 1,000 among the Indians alone."

As the workers live in virtual slavery, foreign nationals (mostly from European and other Western nations) and Dubai citizens either revel in their absolute control or nervously look the other way while enjoying the fruit of the doomed lives. Young women, imported as household maids, are doomed. Young men, imported as construction workers, are doomed. Doomed to years of enslavement in the economic households of foreign businesses, years of enslavement in the physical households of foreign families. Are there chains and whips, shackles and torture? No, not really. Those are not really needed when the state, its police and court systems, are the instruments of coercion and control. What is so bad about this situation, say in comparison to other examples of the modern human slave trade? Where is the stomach turning evil? It is in the conspiracy of silence among those enjoying the Dubai lifestyle, many of whom I'm sure would claim to be Christian, or if not Christian, all of whom would claim to be civilized.

The question started going through my mind as I lay awake this morning: what if one of those workers were part of my family? Would I allow days, weeks, months to slip by knowing that my son or daughter was being held against their will? I'm reminded of stories splashed all over U.S. national media of those who have lost a family member to kidnapping or had a family member go missing overseas. The affected family's life changes in an instant. They drop everything. All thoughts now revolve around finding, recovering, freeing the son, daughter, sister, brother. As I lay thinking, the phrase "not in my family" kept coming to mind.

What would I allow to happen to a family member? Where would I draw the line saying, life has now changed? What would it take for every waking moment to be devoted to the recovery of the lost? In reality, my family lines are drawn so close that I would probably risk economic devastation (meaning drop everything right now) to rescue my wife, daughter or son. The closest ties, the blood relatives, those physically and emotionally dependent, are first in line: the "immediate" family. There would be a point reached, a line crossed where continuing to build a personal future no longer mattered. There could be no personal future that included my own captivity nor a future that included the captivity of someone essentially part of me. I would probably have to prepare for a day or two, perhaps take a week to get things in order (so as not to risk the safety of the immediate family) before dropping everything to help rescue a mother, father, brother, or sister. More distant relatives would probably get as much assistance as possible without risking my own economic devastation.

But yet the thought keeps coming back, "not in my family." Whose family? What am I a part of? What "immediate" tie binds me to another person? My own blood of course. The bonds of the marriage covenant with my wife. The blood of Jesus. Or does it? How tightly am I bound, how closely am I related to others by the blood of Jesus? There is the "right" answer to that question and then there is the real answer. The right answer is one that I could repeat as a doctrinal statement, could recite from memory, could regurgitate as an empty platitude. I could murmur something to the effect of the body of Christ, members of one another, one member hurts, all hurt, etc. Then there is the "real" answer. The real answer would be one that I could repeat as a lifestyle, could recite from experience, could reconstruct by personal example. Practically speaking the bonds are to those who look like me, with those who agree with me, among those who are me. The real answer is that my family ties, the bonds that would cause me to risk life and limb, are with myself and with small short distance extensions of myself.

The real answer is that practically speaking, I no more see myself as part of the same family as a teenaged Ethiopian girl who loves Jesus but is trapped in Dubai as I do to the Queen of England. That sounded confusing, let me rephrase it. Practically speaking, I have tighter bonds of care and concern for our family dog than for the family of God. Yes, the problem is me. For a host of complex reasons (ok that is a cop out, it is because I'm emotionally lazy) I have not worked at keeping up close emotional ties to my own extended physical family. But even with a certain emotional distance, I would go to great effort to rescue a physical family member.

But yet the thought keeps coming back, "not in my family." My wrestling with these thoughts is touching on a deeper issue. I've been lazy in my relationship with the family of God. I imagine that Jesus would be just as offended as I would be if someone were to suggest to me that the blood tie that binds my immediate family together is a symbolic, metaphorical (or even better, theological) concept. That sounded confusing again, let me rephrase it. Practically speaking, I think disciples of Jesus have tighter bonds of care and concern for the family dog than for the family of God. That sounded offensive, let me rephrase it. I think most Christians' practical notion of the family of God extends only to the social construct of a weekly church meeting of people who all look basically alike. I think most Christians are comfortable having relegated the idea of being in the family of God bound together by the blood of Jesus to nothing more then theological symbolism. Yes they might say, as Christians we are part of the family of God, but it is a mystical, symbolic, universal truth. No the Father would say, the Spirit of adoption crying out daddy in each one of my children is a real and practical as well as spiritual and invisible bond.

Not in my family. What do I allow to happen to Jesus' family members before the line is crossed? When do I finally decide that any future that includes family members being enslaved and entrapped is no future at all? No I'm not pleading for increased missionary zeal to rescue the spiritually lost. That is a different topic. I'm hearing the Lord Jesus say now, physically, in the real world "not in my family". Not in my family should there be sons and daughters physically enslaved and abused. Not in my family should there be brothers and sisters ignoring the actual physical captivity of their own family.

What would such a future be like, facing every day knowing there is an immediate family member in captivity? You would either be spurred to tireless action or numbed to deaden the emotional pain. Make your choice: spurred to action or numbed to death. Ah... I see it has already been made. Re-choose then, you're not in a dentist's chair, numbness does you no good. Numbness is in fact deadly.