I am captivated by an interview Ezra Klein recently conducted with Mahmoud Khalil. Mahmoud described how he was active in leading the pro-Palestinian movement as a graduate student at Columbia University, and was a loud proponent for ending US support of the Israeli genocide. In March 2025, ICE detained him, despite the fact that he was a legal permanent resident, and sent him to a detention center in Louisiana. Mahmoud was released after 100 days following a judge’s ruling that his detention was unconstitutional. The judge ruled his offense of speaking out for ending the war falls under the category of freedom of speech.
During the interview, as Ezra and Mahmoud dove into the details of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ezra challenged Mahmoud about his view of the killing of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. After validating that this was an action that should be condemned and the perpetrators of those horrific acts should be held accountable, Mahmoud said, “Palestinians don’t have to be perfect victims, and that is what the world is asking of them. We cannot go and ask Palestinians to be perfect victims.”
His response made me think. How often do we ask this very thing of Palestinians or any victim for that matter? If a victim is going to receive sympathy and support, they need to appear fully innocent. I remember an incident from many years ago when a woman in my community was attacked after leaving a club late at night. It was awful, and it instilled fear throughout the community. But as the story was being shared in the media and discussed around town, I remember hearing people ask, “Why was she out so late?” and “Why was she dressed like that?”
As a society we demand perfect victims. There are changes being demanded and implemented requiring drug tests for anyone on government assistance. There are now significant paperwork and work requirements to prove a Medicaid recipient is worthy. If a test is failed or the paperwork is wrong, people are kicked off the program, even if they clearly need help. Sympathy and care depend on perfection.
Mahmoud’s declaration that the world demands perfection from the Palestinians before offering support and sympathy is a pebble in my shoe which I can’t seem to remove. I sense this demand for perfect victims is an unwanted gift from Christianity to the wider culture. The church teaches that Jesus is sinless, a perfect victim on the cross. Paul said to “Imitate me as I imitate Christ,” but it’s hardly realistic to think Paul meant we’re supposed to be sinless when we face any trial. Yet I think this belief is (unintentionally) the unstated expectation pressed upon all victims, especially those victims who are not like “us.” In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus refuted this, but we continue to pass by on the other side of the road when people we don’t deem worthy of our help are in front of us.
The belief that one is only worthy of our help if their behavior (or identity) matches our expectations is detrimental and counter to what Jesus teaches. The victims in Palestine, like the woman in my community attacked outside of a night club, might not be perfect, but they desperately need the compassion and love that Jesus showed on the cross.
Robert Farrar Capon’s thesis for the gospel provides an antidote for this compassion-denying thinking. Christ is the last, the least, the little, the lost, and the dying. We find this in the company he keeps: sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors—the disreputable ones; and in the company, he doesn’t keep: Pharisees, priests, and political leaders—the respectable ones. The woman caught in adultery was in fact caught in adultery, but Jesus had compassion on her. When a blind man was brought before Jesus and he was asked whose sin caused the man to be born blind, he didn’t answer the question. Instead, he healed the man. Jesus never declared that anyone must be a perfect victim. This is the essential message of the cross. Yes, Jesus was sinless, but on the cross he was also the last, least, little, lost, and dying, and the resurrection is God’s proclamation that “God died in Christ forgiving. With the dead body of Jesus, he wedged open the door between himself and the world and said, ‘There! Just try and get me to take that back’” (The Parables of the Kingdom, 20).
In a world in desperate need of compassion and love, what would a church look like that demands compassion for both the victims of October 7 and the Palestinian people? What if we stopped demanding more than Jesus does? What if we tried to live a faith that sets aside perfection and offers what those who are the last, least, little, lost, and dying need and are seeking in this world? That sounds like Imitating Christ.
12 Responses
Good call.
Thank you for these Sunday reflections. My own sense of the wide embrace of the Gospel, the depth of God’s mercy and the radical nature of God’s grace was influenced by Robert Farrar Capon’s books on the parables and the way they help us be embraced and find our life in the Triune God.
Me too, Capon.
It seems to me that we as a society often demand more of those seeking assistance than we do ourselves. If the ones that we come in contact with don’t meet our standards, we find it easier to turn away. We are more judgmental than curious and justify that judgment based not on love, but on our own values. We say things like “why don’t they just….” or “If they would just try to….”. We don’t want to look behind what we see and try to understand that many victims have been abused, traumatized, abandoned, raised in instability, have few role models and a lack of support.
I thought this was going to be about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. He was not perfect (even though many of his supporters almost imply that he was), but he was a victim. His family, and even his followers are grieving. They deserve our compassion.
The web of victims grows. I also thought this would be about Charlie Kirk. He and his family are victims, as are the many groups of people that he disparaged in his speech. They aren’t perfect, either. So the web of people who deserve our compassion also grows.
Douglas,
I did think about this. For better or worse, my article was written on Monday, and editing seemed near impossible. Frankly, I wasn’t sure a statement about Kirk’s imperfections would be welcome so soon after his murder. We get that as Christian’s, but I wasn’t sure if it was the time to point that out.
Rodney, thank you for addressing this “pebble” in your shoe, a rock of ages to ponder indeed. With the parable of the Good Samaritan in hand & heart.
Reminds me of the older gospel song, “He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need”. One of my favorite lines, “How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul…” We so quickly forget that we are the needy, the broken, the doomed if not for Jesus, the cross, and that “open door between himself and the world that was wedged open” on that resurrection morning. Oh, that God would expand my heart with the compassion and love needed to look beyond others faults and see their needs.
Jesus did hang out with the lest, the last, and the lost, etc. but that also included the Pharisees. Gospel accounts show frequent (often contentious), interactions throughout Jesus’ ministry, including debates in synagogues, but also in homes, as well as discussions in the Temple precincts. Many of us reading this are more like the Pharisees.
Rowland,
This is very true. And I thought about that as I wrote. Space being appropriately limited, it was hard to include that qualifier.
Thanks everyone for the comments. This has been challenging and also fulfilling, and Jeff Munroe as an editor has made it 150x better than it would have been on my own. Thank God for good editors. Two more weeks to go. “See” you in a week.