I wrote this back on July 16 for episcopalcafe.com's Speaking to the Soul on tomorrow's gospel; the link can be found here. Thought I'd repost it, especially in light of President Obama's executive order on immigration this week.
Today’s gospel starts with a discussion of separation. In
the vision of judgment Jesus describes, one people will be separated from
another, and he compares them to the sheep and the goats. Using symbolism that
appears repeatedly throughout scripture, the sheep are those who are blessed
and obedient to God’s will—in this case, God’s will of radical generosity and
care for others: feeding the hungry and providing drink for the thirsty,
welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and those in
prison. Jesus’s vision makes it clear that he himself had been welcomed when
the poor, the sick, and the outcast had been cared for.
Psychologically and sociologically speaking, the boundaries
of our world usually progress from our own self, to our family, to our
neighborhood, to our community, to our state, and to our nation. Some of us
include other circles within this mental Venn diagram: our parish, our diocese,
our denomination, and the Church overall, in the case of Episcopalians. It is a common occurrence in our culture to
see a sharp separation between ourselves and others. This is nothing new.
Throughout scripture, in both the Old Testament and the New
Testament, there are dozens of laws and reminders to treat the strangers and
the aliens among us with hospitality and compassion. Closer to home, there is
Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan, which he told in answer to the question,
“Who is my neighbor?” In short, the answer was, “Not whom you expect.”
We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves by being
reminded that that neighborhood encompasses those we traditionally think of as
rivals and enemies. We are called to
care for those who seek our help. Again and again, we are called to break down
the barriers that separate us in response to the vision of the kingdom of
heaven, as Matthew likes to phrase it--
a unified humanity in a unified creation bound together in love to God
and each other.
We are commanded in our gospel reading today to welcome the
stranger, with dire consequences if we fail. Yet we seem to have more than
enough problem welcoming our neighbor, much less the stranger among us. It
seems modern society is more fractured than ever, both in the United States and
elsewhere in the world—even among our countrymen there is so much contempt and
denigration directed at those we have deemed different from us. If we can’t
love our neighbors, how can we respond to the stranger and the alien among us?
We are not seeing many good results regarding the increasing
crisis along the US southern border, where, in just the last nine months,
52,000 unaccompanied minors have been placed in detention while seeking asylum
from violence in their homelands. We
have read reflections on this crisis in just the last few weeks from our
Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies of the General
Convention, and the Chief Operating Officer of the Episcopal Church, to name
but a few.
But the challenge of care for those who are outcast is
certainly not limited to the United States. In Israel, we have the ongoing
bloodshed between Hamas and the Israeli government in Gaza. Earlier this
spring, anti-immigrant candidates in Europe received a shocking amount of
support in European Union elections, buoyed by a backlash against a surge of
refugees from Europe and Africa. In Africa, refugees flee Nigeria, the Central
African Republic and South Sudan, to name but a few areas of turmoil.
The ancient Hebrews were commanded to provide for the
orphaned and the alien among them, which was an act of remarkable generosity if
one considers what a small people they were, often subject to displacement
themselves. We Americans are blessed to have been largely immune as an entire
people to displacement. Does that mean we can have no understanding for or
humanitarian response to those who have been torn from their families and
homes, and who have experienced warfare and bloodshed?
We are called to transform our vision of the “least of
these” from nuisances who place demands upon our finite resources of money and
compassion. Again and again, we are called to remember that Jesus was not, and
is not, the one everyone expected. He was not born into the ruling classes,
from a powerful family, from a cosmopolitan city in the center of the empire. He
was not the warrior king who would restore the political fortunes of Israel.
For those of us who cling to Jesus’s teachings today, we are
reminded that Jesus not just was but IS. This is why scripture still speaks to
us. “As it was, is now, and ever shall be.” We read about the Jesus who was,
and many of us try to appeal to the Jesus who will be, but we often forget
about the Jesus who IS , right now. Can we understand that Jesus is among us
now? The face of Jesus still is the face of our neighbor, the face of the poor,
the sick, and the refugee.
In Jesus’s parable, the goats, those who did NOT respond
with openheartedness to those who were vulnerable, protest that they did not
turn away Jesus, because they did not recognize who Jesus was at the moments
when compassion was called for. Jesus stands in solidarity with “the least of
these”—those who cling to the margins of society, those who were easily spurned
or shunned, those who are seeking to survive.
These are our neighbors. These are the faces of Jesus.
Repeatedly, we have to be reminded that the Jesus we claim
to follow is not the Jesus we expect. Jesus was not really that well-groomed,
handsome man who smiles at us from so many paintings, sculptures, and, lately
movies. Jesus is, however, the one who calls us to open our hands and our
hearts, to love as we have been loved, to give as well as receive. Jesus calls
us to serve him, to see his face in those we could turn away.
