I am surrounded by refugees of one kind or another every day.
Most of those I know are under 4 feet tall.
They have hopes and dreams.
The adults in their lives have hopes and dreams.
Some of those dreams are nightmares.
They are individuals with likes and dislikes. They have unique names and stories. They are not a faceless mob.
Some are Christian, some are Muslim, some are Buddhist, some are none of the above.
Some are kind. Some aren’t.
Frankly, I don’t care what or who they follow. I care that they are people.
Jesus was a refugee. His family fled to Egypt when living in the Middle East under a repressive regime got too dangerous.
The same can be said today for people who leave Asia and Latin America and South Sudan and East LA.
Jesus told me to love my neighbor and to care for people – whether they are like me or not.
Whether they LIKE me or not.
Whether I like THEM or not.
There are no qualifications for neighbor-kind.
His was not a reciprocal call to action. (If you …, then I …)
“Turn the other cheek, forgive 70×7, sell all you have and give to the poor …”
No Christian scriptural loop-hole that says, “Love thy neighbor unless … ”
Neighbor means neighbor. Love means love.
There’s no “yeah, but” wiggle room between registering Muslims and Kristallnacht.
The very idea should scare hell out of “us”, because “they” are “us”.
So … feed and house and care for refugees if for no other reason than that “the Bible tells me/you so.”
If we are going to follow, we can’t follow only when it is convenient and feels safe.