Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After\nreading today\u2019s Gospel, I couldn\u2019t help but to think about our country\u2019s immigrant\/refugee\nsituation. Right up front, I am aware that this is not a new problem; it goes\nback a number of administrations; our government has not and seems not to want\nto solve it in a humane way; and I have to say that I don\u2019t have the answer,\nbut I still think that we as a people, we as Americans could do a better job,\nthat we as Christians could better show our Christian love to these immigrants\/refugees\nwho are stuck at the border. Yes, I know about the separation of church and\nstate, and I know that a significant percent of our country is not Christian,\nbut even with that, you would think that we could find some solution, something\nbetter. Children separated from their parents and parents and children kept in\novercrowded buildings and pens is borderline abusive at best. We call ourselves\nthe greatest nation in the world, and it may be that we still are; we say that\nwe are a nation built upon Christian principles and to an extent we are, but\nthe way we are treating these immigrants and refugees does not show either our\ngreatness or our Christian principles. We can\u2019t respond to these immigrants as\nthough every last one of them is a threat, as though they are all terrorists\nand drug dealers; they are not; most are just looking for a better life: we,\nyou and I, Americans and Christians are much better than the way these human\nbeings are being treated. Let\u2019s face it, unless any of us can claim to be of a\nNative American decent, every one of us, or our ancestors, came to this country\nas immigrants or refugees, and even if you are a Native American, it is\nspeculated that your ancestors too came from elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
England,\nway back when, forced its undesirables to immigrate to Australia, and a country\nwas born. When the second world war was over the Allies supported the\nimmigration of Jews to the location of old time Israel. There are significant\nproblems with the way that both of these things were done, and I would not\nsuggest such a solution today, but the people of current Australia and Israel built\ntheir nations and Israel turned a lot of what was wilderness into farmland. Who\nknows, a great nation like ours could carve out a section of, what is currently\nwilderness or dessert, for these immigrants and help them make it productive; we\ncould find for them opportunities and jobs, giving them a chance to survive; we\ncould, maybe, see if there is a way to help resolve the issues within their\nhomelands, that precipitated these people running to our border; so, to our\nborder patrol I say, investigate these immigrants and refugees, but quickly, we\nowe that to our citizens. Again, who knows what will turn out to be the best\nanswer to this crisis? But I have a problem with treating, these suffering\nhuman beings, like criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadly,\nwe as a country, are responding to these immigrants much like the priest and\nthe Levite of Jesus\u2019 story (our Gospel reading). Is it that we are so afraid of\ngetting our (figuratively speaking) hands a little dirty and paying a little,\nout of pocket, that we are willing to accept inhumane treatment of immigrants\nand refugees? Or, is it just that we in this country do not have it in us to be\nlike the Samaritan and help, really help these people, and the many others that\nwill follow? People of a great nation will find a way to make this better;\nChristians will demonstrate their love to make this better; again, I\u2019m not\nsaying that we shouldn\u2019t check out their stories, but we need to make it a\npriority, instead of making of them a proverbial \u201chot potato\u201d or \u201cpolitical\nfootball\u201d. Caring for these immigrants and refugees is a way that our country,\nas a people, can be the country that the Statue of Liberty says that we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But\nit is not just about our government, it\u2019s rules and enforcement; we need also to\nthink about how we as individuals can be more like the Samaritan of Jesus\u2019\nstory in our everyday lives. We can\u2019t always pass off the responsibility, to\nlove and care for our neighbors, expecting it all to be done by the government\nor even the institution of the church. It was a very brave and caring thing that\nthe Samaritan did! It is hard to be loving and caring to those who seem to need\nit most. It is especially hard when we feel that there might be a risk in\nhelping these others. We just last week celebrated the courage of our citizens who\nserved in the military; I stood on Normandy Beach and saw some of what our\ntroops faced there; we rightfully celebrate the courage of these soldiers, but courage\nis needed in places other than war; we also celebrate the courage of our first\nChristians and those who through the ages stood against evil and shared Jesus\u2019\nlove; courage is a part of the fabric of being an American and being a\nChristian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\nis not a part of the fabric of our citizenship and faith, is ignoring the needs\nof those who suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So\nhow do we emulate the mercy and courage of that Samaritan of Jesus\u2019 story? It\nis not just a feel-good story. I\u2019m not here to encourage you to represent the\nideals of our country, that\u2019s someone else\u2019s job, but you called me as your\npastor to encourage you to represent the ideals of the Christian faith, so find\na way to express as best you can your Christian love in all things. We do a\nlot, as a congregation and members, for the poor; there are baskets of food and\nother stuff filling up, out in the Pikeland wing, for the poor and the\nhomeless. This is great! We also feed the residents of a shelter, by making\ndinners for them. This too is great. We take offerings for a number of other\ncauses, even as we run a deficit. Thank you, that is to be applauded. We seem\nwilling to express our love by our actions and with our money, now we need to\nalso speak out with our voices for the weak and poor; immigrants and refugees\nare part of this group: if we don\u2019t speak out, what else will our leaders\nthink, but that they are doing what we want. Jesus was not shy about telling us\nto help and he was not shy about helping the poor, weak, sick and outcast\nhimself. Let his word and his example be our guide and hopefully those whom we\nhave entrusted with this responsibility and those whom we believe are smarter\nthan all of us, will find the best way to help those suffering along our\nborder, on our streets and around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ After reading today\u2019s Gospel, I couldn\u2019t help but to think about our country\u2019s immigrant\/refugee situation. Right up front, I am aware that this is not a new problem; it goes back a number of administrations; our Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}