I’ve had us and them on my mind lately. Trying to figure out a bit who is “us” and who is “them.”

There’s a line between who is my family and who isn’t, although I find that line can really blur at times. (I have relatives I’ve never seen, for example)

There’s a line between who is a Christian and who isn’t. Even those lines get blurry at times.

I guess things like disasters make me think about this, why a disaster in West, Texas, seems to impact us so much more than a tragedy in Mexico, for example. Or why the Boston bombings touch us in a way that Baghdad bombings don’t.

Days like Memorial Day do that, too. We remember those who have been killed as American servicemen. What about civilians killed in war? They’re usually foreigners, but sometimes they’re Americans as well. What about soldiers from other countries? Do we just suppose that their countries will honor them?

All of this gets tricky when you start including the church. Off the top of my head, I can think of people in my home church who are from Germany, Japan, Brazil, South Korea, China, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa and Costa Rica. I know there are more countries represented; those are just the ones that come to mind. As the church talks about “our soldiers,” how are they supposed to respond? How do they fit into the “us” and “them”? Which takes precedence when we are at church, the “us” as Christians or the “them” as natives of other countries?

No solutions offered here today. Just questions. Maybe “they” can tell me how I should think of “us.”