Wait, Wasn't Jesus a Refugee?

Photo by Magnus Wennman, http://www.refinery29.com/2015/
11/97460/where-syrian-refugee-children-sleep#slide-10

Last week our sisters and brothers in France were wounded in a brutal terrorist attack claiming the lives of 129 people and wounding over 350 more. This, like all other such attacks, have a blatant disregard for life...a heinous crime that can never be condoned or supported by anyone in their right mind. My congregation held them up in prayer on Sunday as well as teaching our young ones about God's presence in the midst of pain and suffering. Across various social media platforms I witnessed people changing their pictures to have a watermark of the French flag, plenty of #prayforparis posts, and yes...lots of prayers offered up to God. 

And yet this event also provided a proof for people to reject refugees from Syria on the basis that they might be letting in a terrorist. Such sentiments stem from one of the cancers of humanity, fear. I agree that we do not want any sort of attacks...ever. But are we willing to turn away from people in need?Will we tell people there is no room in the inn? I get it. We are scared of the possibilities of what could be, but that doesn't excuse us from being disciples.

North Dakota has been struggling with this issue. Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota has been facilitating the resettlement of refugees since the 1950s, yet just this year people have been voicing strong opinions against such activity. In fact, it has been such a heated topic in the area that police squad cars have had to watch over the executive director of LSS ND's house because of  threats to her and her family.

But here is the thing...

LSS is not taking as many as they can get in order to earn as much money as they can get, these new Americans have been placed here by the U.S. government. These new Americans are not sucking up all of the social services funds and resources, in fact according to Cass County, only 15% of  county assistance goes to New Americans. These new Americans are not hurting our economy, they are helping because they are taking the jobs that nobody wants! Yet that does not stop that insidious and infectious part of humanity we call fear.

So perhaps it is because of the fear of rekindling the flames of protest against the work of resettlement, or maybe it is because ND does not have a Syrian population in which to connect new immigrants, Lutheran Social Services of ND has made a statement that they are requesting not to have any of the Syrian refugees placed in this state. Instead they want to focus on settling the people they have in recent decades (people from Bhutan, Sudan, Iraq, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Cuba, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia). While both may likely be driving factors, it seems as though LSS of ND has taken the easy way out of this conversation.

So what should the church do? 

We should live into our baptismal identities as God's children, as God's agents in the world, as God's disciples. 

You see discipleship is all about going out of the church walls and into the world to answer the cries of our neighbor. It is a deepening of engagement with the world, not a personal achievement. It is the Triune God who reshapes all of us in our baptisms to follow the new obedience of Jesus Christ and not our own wants, or fear for the matter. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote:

But because Jesus' disciples act in simple obedience to their Lord, they view the extraordinary as the only normal act of obedience. According to Jesus' word, the disciples can do nothing else but be the light that shines. They do not do anything to accomplish this; they are the light while following Christ, looking only to their Lord. (Discipleship, 150)

Indeed, such an obedience to minister to people in need as that of refugees may seem to be extraordinary to the world, but for Christians is should not be. Not so much that this is a common occurrence, rather that the call to go to this neighbor is something which is readily and willingly done. This is because all cries from our sisters and brothers are met by the obedience of disciples in their calls of service.                                                                                                                       

But for those who need a refresher, here's what Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew about what it means to serve God and the world:

...for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Now is the time to look at ourselves and take an inventory of what we are doing in our discipleship. Are we going to lock our doors, our hearts, our minds, our borders, our lives from those who so desperately need God's love? Are we going to declare to people that there is no room in the inn when we could find some? Now is the time for the radical hospitality of God. To see that lived out in a frightened world is going to to take bold and courageous action.

We are called to be the light that shines.
     W are called to be disciples.
          We are called to love our neighbors. 
               We are called to love the least of these.

I pray that as we look to the coming season of Advent, a season of hopeful waiting for the coming of God, we find ourselves welcoming the refugee infant. The lowly babe born in a manger, Jesus.

-Tom

Come Out!

Let’s not sugar coat the issue of the All Saint's Day text, death sucks. The prospects of the process of dying scare us because we do not want to suffer and we do not want to leave our loved ones in pain. Death seems like the ending point in our lives because we will cease to exist as our minds can fathom. Death certainly seems like the end.

This is the sort of attitude that the disciples, Mary, Martha, and the gathered community were operating with at the time of Lazarus’ death. They cry and weep before Jesus, “If you only you had been here to save him…” These people who have been following Jesus around Judea had seen miracle upon miracle and they certainly believe that he has powers, but they couldn’t understand what kind. Jesus turns water into wine, Jesus heals a blind man, Jesus walks on water. But they could not grasp the idea that death could be defied. They could not envision Jesus as the resurrection and the life overcoming death’s stronghold. It’s no wonder that Jesus cries, because they simply do not understand what is going on…why Jesus is here…

Who do you identify with in this gospel reading? My guess is that we all feel like Mary and Martha more often than not. We believe in a loving God that is gracious and merciful and can do miraculous things. Yet when it comes to death we lash out in lament. Why did you let all of those people die? Why is there so much suffering and pain in the world? Why don’t you do anything? Why didn’t you come and save my brother? Why?

Such a way of life, of looking to the future without hope, is attractive because it does not require us to move out of our grief and pain. We find it comfortable to wallow in despair, but that is not the life God calls us to.

To make his point Jesus goes to the place where they had buried Lazarus. Why? Because he is going to show the people that he doesn’t have the power to stop death. God has the power to overcome death. “Lazarus come out!” These three words crack open the door, enough for us to peek through and catch a glimpse of what God will be up to in the resurrection. God is giving us new life not just after our deaths, but in the here and now.

Where does God beckon you to come out? Which one of death’s relatives keeps you behind a stone? What sin keeps you from living into discipleship? How does despair pin you down? How does division separate you from God’s love? How is our community trapped in old ways that keep us from participating in God’s mission in a new time and place? Lazarus, come out!

This call is a call of resurrection that God is not afraid to offer to me and to you in all of the dark, dank, stench ridden places of our lives. God goes to such extents not to usher us into heaven, rather to lead us to a life of service. If we look at the end of the passage, Jesus calls for the community to come to Lazarus to unbind him from his burial wrappings. Jesus calls for us, the community, to enter into the miracle in order to finish it. That is the life we are called to.

On November 1^st we celebrated All Saints Day. It is a day where the church gathers together to remember with honor those who have died in the last year. But why do we call them saints? Simply put saints are people who have been declared holy. Now I do not mean that a special committee gets together to decide who is holy and who is not, rather, it is God who declares us holy. You see we are not holy by any merit or work of our own, rather God does because it is God who sets us apart in the world to do God’s work in the world. All Saints Day then takes on new form, it honors those who have been living into their various vocations in service to God and it encourages us to continue our journey of faith and life.

You see whatever we do in faith is considered holy. And when we do it…we can see moments of God’s transforming presence. We can see miracles today. We can see resurrection. We can hear the divine voice calling, “Lazarus, come out.”

When I coached high school football in Minneapolis, some of the coaches who were teachers and myself would hold a study hall for those struggling academically. And there is one young man in particular who I will always remember. His family immigrated to the U.S. from an African country and he adjusted well to the US culture, but academics were a tough road to travel for this young man. We would sit together for the entire study session going over math problems where I would have to put it in terms that he could understand…football terms.

It was an awesome sight to see him catch on and eventually excel in math and other subjects. It was an awesome sight to see him develop into a stellar high school football player. And it is now an awesome sight to see him fulfilling his dream of playing college football at a division one school. Looking back I have no doubt God was working a miracle in this man’s life. And it took a community of family members, football coaches, and teachers to make this miracle happen. He heard God beckoning to him, “Lazarus, come out!” And he did. And there was a community surrounding him to help God finish the miracle.

All Saints Day celebrates those who have done that work and have died. All Saints Day directs us not to look up to heaven in the hopes of resurrection, that will come. It directs us to look at our neighbors, the ones who are left on the margins of society, the lonely, the hungry, the least of these. All Saints Day, is a day in which we are reminded of our baptismal calling of new life in Christ and creating such a way for others.

All Saints Day is a reminder that we shouldn’t be perpetually stuck like Mary, Martha, and the other disciples. Rather we are called to a faith that trusts that Christ is the resurrection and the life, a faith that hears the call to come out of our own tombs where death wants to keep us trapped, a faith that works with one another to do God’s work. Indeed we are called and we must respond. Lazarus come out.

-Tom