You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers
in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy
10:19)
From the first stories
in our Bible, God calls us to welcome the stranger, the alien, the immigrant,
the migrant, the refugee. There really is no way a person of faith, Jew, Muslim
or Christian can argue that God calls us to shun the other. It is a startling
fact that the three monolithic religions on Earth all place a high value on
welcoming the stranger. To say otherwise is to deny the Word of God. There is
no other way to be clear about this.
Job brags in chapter 29:
“I was a father to the needy, and I
championed the cause of the stranger.” It is a virtue for the person of
faith to stand up for the immigrant and the refugee. God calls us to this way
of life because we are all immigrants and refugees. We all have traveled from
home to find work. We all have had to flee violence and war for a safer shore.
We are called to remember that we are all children of God far from home.
The prophets consistently
describe evil and the unrighteous in terms of how they treat the needy and the
stranger. Psalm 96 describes the unrighteous as those who “Kill the widow and the
stranger, they murder the orphan.” In Exodus 23:9 we are taught that we should
not wrong or oppress a resident alien. In fact in Numbers 15:16 we are taught
that “You and the alien shall have the same
law and the same ordinance.”
When we watch our TV
news lately we have seen the stranger, the alien, the refugee being treated
like chattel if not with disdain. The evil that is inflicted on these poor
refugees is stunning. No child should wash up on shore dead, ever; and neither
should that child’s parents. War and famine has displaced so many good people,
we need to step up and find them safe places.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is urging
the United States to increase the number of Syrian refugees resettled next
fiscal year to 100,000. We have the capacity and I think that our communities
and congregations have the will to welcome these brothers and sisters to our
shores. I urge you to visit LIRS
and send a message to President Obama to increase the number of Syrian
refugees admitted to our country.
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming
shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my
lamp beside the golden door! (New
Colossus, Emma Lazarus as found on the Statue of Liberty)
