…for our servicemen and women who go and take these massive mortal risks in distant places for people we might regard as strangers, that is one of the most effective tools there could be of building friendship. We show we are willing to take risks, even for those we don\u2019t know, so that they may become friends, so that there may be harmony. And that requires an enormous and unusual level of commitment. Commitment to a vision of a world that might be, and is not yet. A world where it\u2019s possible for every stranger to become a friend. It requires a deep vision of what human beings may become, and are not yet.<\/p>\n
For the Christian, that vision is rooted in what we heard in the rest of the Gospel reading. We believe in a God who took the most extraordinary risk \u201d\u201c to make us his friends. A God who in life and death served those who wanted to be his enemies, so that he might build community with them. A God who came to us, strangers to his love and his peace, and who offered his life so that there might be peace; lasting peace, universal community.<\/p>\n
That inspiration, that vision, the humanity that might be and the world that might be, that continues to be part of what the Christian faith offers to the world. Because what the Christian faith offers to the whole human world is a rationale and a motive for this strange business of taking risks for people we don\u2019t know, in contexts we barely understand, simply because we believe it\u2019s possible that strangers can become neighbours, and that neighbours can live in harmony.<\/p>\n