Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
After reading today’s Gospel, I couldn’t help but to think about our country’s immigrant/refugee situation. Right up front, I am aware that this is not a new problem; it goes back a number of administrations; our government has not and seems not to want to solve it in a humane way; and I have to say that I don’t have the answer, but I still think that we as a people, we as Americans could do a better job, that we as Christians could better show our Christian love to these immigrants/refugees who are stuck at the border. Yes, I know about the separation of church and state, and I know that a significant percent of our country is not Christian, but even with that, you would think that we could find some solution, something better. Children separated from their parents and parents and children kept in overcrowded buildings and pens is borderline abusive at best. We call ourselves the greatest nation in the world, and it may be that we still are; we say that we are a nation built upon Christian principles and to an extent we are, but the way we are treating these immigrants and refugees does not show either our greatness or our Christian principles. We can’t respond to these immigrants as though every last one of them is a threat, as though they are all terrorists and drug dealers; they are not; most are just looking for a better life: we, you and I, Americans and Christians are much better than the way these human beings are being treated. Let’s face it, unless any of us can claim to be of a Native American decent, every one of us, or our ancestors, came to this country as immigrants or refugees, and even if you are a Native American, it is speculated that your ancestors too came from elsewhere.
England, way back when, forced its undesirables to immigrate to Australia, and a country was born. When the second world war was over the Allies supported the immigration of Jews to the location of old time Israel. There are significant problems with the way that both of these things were done, and I would not suggest such a solution today, but the people of current Australia and Israel built their nations and Israel turned a lot of what was wilderness into farmland. Who knows, a great nation like ours could carve out a section of, what is currently wilderness or dessert, for these immigrants and help them make it productive; we could find for them opportunities and jobs, giving them a chance to survive; we could, maybe, see if there is a way to help resolve the issues within their homelands, that precipitated these people running to our border; so, to our border patrol I say, investigate these immigrants and refugees, but quickly, we owe that to our citizens. Again, who knows what will turn out to be the best answer to this crisis? But I have a problem with treating, these suffering human beings, like criminals.
Sadly, we as a country, are responding to these immigrants much like the priest and the Levite of Jesus’ story (our Gospel reading). Is it that we are so afraid of getting our (figuratively speaking) hands a little dirty and paying a little, out of pocket, that we are willing to accept inhumane treatment of immigrants and refugees? Or, is it just that we in this country do not have it in us to be like the Samaritan and help, really help these people, and the many others that will follow? People of a great nation will find a way to make this better; Christians will demonstrate their love to make this better; again, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t check out their stories, but we need to make it a priority, instead of making of them a proverbial “hot potato” or “political football”. Caring for these immigrants and refugees is a way that our country, as a people, can be the country that the Statue of Liberty says that we are.
But it is not just about our government, it’s rules and enforcement; we need also to think about how we as individuals can be more like the Samaritan of Jesus’ story in our everyday lives. We can’t always pass off the responsibility, to love and care for our neighbors, expecting it all to be done by the government or even the institution of the church. It was a very brave and caring thing that the Samaritan did! It is hard to be loving and caring to those who seem to need it most. It is especially hard when we feel that there might be a risk in helping these others. We just last week celebrated the courage of our citizens who served in the military; I stood on Normandy Beach and saw some of what our troops faced there; we rightfully celebrate the courage of these soldiers, but courage is needed in places other than war; we also celebrate the courage of our first Christians and those who through the ages stood against evil and shared Jesus’ love; courage is a part of the fabric of being an American and being a Christian.
What is not a part of the fabric of our citizenship and faith, is ignoring the needs of those who suffer.
So how do we emulate the mercy and courage of that Samaritan of Jesus’ story? It is not just a feel-good story. I’m not here to encourage you to represent the ideals of our country, that’s someone else’s job, but you called me as your pastor to encourage you to represent the ideals of the Christian faith, so find a way to express as best you can your Christian love in all things. We do a lot, as a congregation and members, for the poor; there are baskets of food and other stuff filling up, out in the Pikeland wing, for the poor and the homeless. This is great! We also feed the residents of a shelter, by making dinners for them. This too is great. We take offerings for a number of other causes, even as we run a deficit. Thank you, that is to be applauded. We seem willing to express our love by our actions and with our money, now we need to also speak out with our voices for the weak and poor; immigrants and refugees are part of this group: if we don’t speak out, what else will our leaders think, but that they are doing what we want. Jesus was not shy about telling us to help and he was not shy about helping the poor, weak, sick and outcast himself. Let his word and his example be our guide and hopefully those whom we have entrusted with this responsibility and those whom we believe are smarter than all of us, will find the best way to help those suffering along our border, on our streets and around the world.