Election 2016 - How would Jesus have us think about Immigration?

Election 2016

How would Jesus have us think about

Immigration?

Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Jeff Lampl

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,  I was a stranger and you invited me in . . .  'I tell you the truth,
whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Matthew 25:35, 40 

How is it that Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, led Germany to assume moral leadership in Europe by taking in hundreds of thousands of (mostly Syrian) refugees only to rescind the invitation and close their borders?

Merkel grew up in what was a communist controlled East Germany as the daughter of a Lutheran Pastor.   I am guessing that her experience as a politically oppressed person herself influenced her.   I am also certain that her Christian upbringing taught her that a fundamental of Jesus’ teachings is that we must clothe, feed, take in, the “stranger”.

It is worth noting that God initiated the salvation of the world with Abraham’s family who were impoverished, politically oppressed refugees escaping a brutal life and seeking a new life for themselves in the Promised Land.   In fact, Jesus was himself a political exile and refugee.

“Out of Egypt I called my son”            Matthew 2:15

It is also worth noting that Jesus’s story about final judgment is not addressed to individuals but rather to “nations”.  It has often been noted that God’s ultimate judgment of America will be based on our treatment of the ‘stranger’?

Why then did Angela Merkel’s Germany reverse course?   Germany discovered that it could not assimilate all those people effectively.   Many of the young male refugees have been a danger to young women and of course some members of ISIS were probably among the immigrants.   Those and many, many more problems have arisen.   So many that just a day or two ago, Merkel lost to the anti-immigration Party in the “primary” election of her home state.

My take?  I think Merkel’s initial move to give a home to displaced people was a Jesus move.   Sharing what we have with those who have less regardless of nationality is a theme which runs through the Old Testament and is lifted up high by Jesus.   And, whatever danger, inconvenience or suffering that doing so causes us is a price that Jesus led the way for us in paying.   He wants us to take up our crosses for the “stranger”.

Why don’t we and other nations take in more immigrants?   Although I am fully aware of the rational objections, frankly I don’t think those are the real reasons.   It’s more likely that most of us, not least among whom am I, are like the Washington DC elite, who, when faced with where to put their quota of immigrants, placed them in a lower middle class area outside the buffered confines of their pristine neighborhoods.   But how can I complain, when I want to be no more inconvenienced than they?   As Jesus spoke of the judgment of nations he spoke he gave us this measuring stick

'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine,
you did for me.'     Matthew 25:40

“Father, give us ears to hear and eyes to see.  In particular, Lord, remind us that judgment starts with the house of the Lord.   May each of us lead the way in our sphere of influence to model personal sacrifice for those who need drink, food, clothing and a place to lay their heads.   Make our hearts become more and more like yours.  Amen”