I stumbled onto a book review recently that not only pulled me into the story but hit me with a poignant reminder about how we are all called to see the world through Christ-guided eyes of faith. It was a biography of Chang and Eng Bunker, Siamese twin brothers literally from Siam (now known as Thailand). They were born in 1811 and lived with their family until a Scottish businessman named Robert Hunter eventually won the king’s permission and the mother’s acquiescence to take the boys to England. They left Siam in 1829 for a “five-year tour” that ended up lasting more than 45 years. The young men were put on display all over Europe and North America, where they were poked and prodded, laughed at as freaks and monsters. But they refused to play the role of sideshow oddities. Within a few years, they broke free of their manager and eventually made enough money to retire to a house in Mount Airy, North Carolina. There, to widespread consternation, they married two Southern sisters and eventually fathered 21 children.
The story grows more complex, though. For despite their strong courage and determination to persevere, the Siamese brothers lived as devout Confederates during the Civil War. They bought and sold slaves, despite their own experience of having been sold into indentured servitude and treated as something less than human. The five-inch band of flesh that connected them (as well as part of their sternum and liver) was never able to be severed. The brothers never achieved full freedom. Sadly, while they lived, they were complicit in inflicting a similar, if not worse, level of captivity upon the slaves that were under their control.
In reflecting on the incongruity of the captive twins holding others captive as slaves, the reviewer (Candice Millard) ended her essay with this powerful statement: “Perhaps what makes us human is not our ability to look the part but our willingness to see ourselves in someone else.”
Scripture often reminds us of the truth in those words. When Samuel was hesitant to anoint the young boy David as the next king of Israel, God reminded him that he shouldn’t look only at the outward appearance, because “the Lord looks on the heart.” And Jesus often quoted the prophet Isaiah, complaining that people honor God with their lips but their hearts are far from the Lord.
There are lots of ways we can “look the part” of good citizens (caring for our nation’s needs over other nations), good providers (making sure our family’s needs are met first), and even good church-folk. But our real humanity comes through, not in how we appear to others, but rather in how well we are able to see a reflection of ourselves (and of God’s love for this world) in the face of others. Escaping from slavery is only truly noble if it guides us to work for the freedom of those still held captive. Working for peace and nuclear disarmament (e.g., with North Korea) can only be laudable if others at risk or in prison are also granted the same chance to live in peace and freedom. As we celebrate another anniversary of this great nation’s historic founding, may we ever see ourselves in the “others” around us through the eyes of Christ, upholding both the principles of our democracy and the priorities of our living faith.
—Randy Bush