R.E.S.P.E.C.T. the Stranger

FOCUS STATEMENT

Last week we talked about listening and then being compelled to act.

As followers of God, our action must always be based on God’s view of the stranger

and how God calls us to love them.

POINT OF RELATION

I recently watched the new limited series “Them” on Prime.

Those who took this Spring’s Book Study with me have heard of this series

as our Study was on Dr. James Cone’s “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” and dealt with Jim Crowe and racism…not just in the Jim Crowe South, but throughout the nation.

“Them” addresses head on the great migration of blacks who were seeking to escape the Jim Crowe South

in order to move to places promising equality and the American dream.

Such places included Brooklyn and other parts of NYC, the South Side of Chicago, Minneapolis, and West Compton.

Today, we know of these places to be the “inner city”, predominantly black, and high with crime and gang violence.

Them follows a black family who migrated from North Carolina

To West Compton with the hope of starting off with a fresh slate and living the American Dream.

At that time, in my mom’s birth year of 1953, West Compton was a suburban community of middle-class white people.

It literally looked like a neighborhood out of Leave It to Beaver

as opposed to the gritty NWA Straight Outta Compton image we have of it today.

Despite their best efforts to start a new life with a fresh slate...

They found an even more pernicious, more hidden form of racism...

They were the outsiders, the strangers…and they were most unwelcome.

The racism this family is subjected too begins to drive them into madness...

And begins to rob them of their happiness and togethernness.

Let us pause and watch this scene in which follows their oldest daughter, Ruby at school.

[Show film]

While I cannot possibly understand and know what it is like to be subjected to Racism…none of us who are white can...

I can relate to the feeling of being an outisder in High School.

My high school experience, in some regards, haunts me to this day.

That is why, in part, I have had a life-long struggle with depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, and body image issues.

The scene of the bon fire and the kids showing “school spirit” is horrifying for me to watch...

Because I have vivid memories of being bullied, made fun or and singled out at such events...

I went to my first homecoming bon fire my Freshman year…and that was also subsequently my last bonfire.

Like, Ruby, I lost myself, and my love for myself, because of internalizing the hate that was shown me.

So, I can relate with that…I can relate with being the stranger.

But there were some beautiful things that came out of my traumatic high school experience...

I did end up making friends with people who cared for me.

They were outcasts much like I was…and so we could relate to each other.

While I won’t say her name without permission,

There was one girl in school that I remember being able to confide...

I have a distinct memory of confiding in her…and vice versa…while sitting on the football field bleachers...

Some of the football players were among the bullies…but there I was in a place that I didn’t fit in…being shown compassion and care by this person.

And there were others like her too.

The truth is that, in those moments, I now see that God was truly working through those people…letting me know that I was not alone.

I wish I realized it then…but I do realize it now.

THINGS TO CONSIDER

Have you ever felt like a stranger

out of place?

Have you felt like you didn’t “fit,”

or felt different from others around you,

or experienced a deep need?

In these moments, have you experienced God’s unconditional love and justice?

Can you think of ways, looking back, that God let you know how much you are loved...

How much you are valued...

How much you BELONG in God’s Kingdom?

WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS

The Bible is clear: as children made in God’s image,

we are to treat the foreigner and or the immigrant with empathy, compassion, justice, and inclusion.

There are NO ifs, ands or buts to that.

There are no exceptions to that rule in the Bible...

So, any seeming justification for not doing so is not Biblical or righteous.

Including financial excuses or anything else.

As a side note, I want to call out a spade here.

I often hear people, who would claim to not be racist or xenophobic, say stuff like:

“If we let them all in, soon we’ll be the minority.

Let’s think about that for a second:

Who are “them”…and who are “we”

We just watched a clip from them…so really think about it.

This is as racist and xenophobic as any statement gets.

It the Us vs. Them mentality...

With us being the supposedly superior “white folk” and “them” being the people of color.

There’s no way around it.

That is RACIST and we need to be rid of that argument.

Deuteronomy 10:17-19 is not an isolated passage;

it is part of a major theme throughout the Bible starting in Genesis 1 and continuing through Revelation.

Time and again, throughout scripture,

God blesses those who treat the stranger with kindness, and curses those who do not.

In See, for example, in Psalm 146:9, it is written:

“The Lord protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.”

In Jeremiah 7:5-7, it is written: “But I will be merciful only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds and start treating each other with justice; only if you stop exploiting foreigners, orphans, and widows; only if you stop your murdering; and only if you stop harming yourselves by worshiping idols. Then I will let you stay in this land that I gave to your ancestors to keep forever.”

You can also check out Ezekiel 22:6-8, 22:29; Malachi 3:5, etc.

In verses 14-16 of Deuteronomy 10, it says that God has chosen the Israelites and their descendants above all other nations and peoples

and for them to circumcise themselves as a sign of being set apart by God.

This language makes some Christians uncomfortable and begs them to ask, “doesn’t God love everyone?”

Or, alternatively, some Christians use this to justify an “us” versus “them”, “chosen” versus “unchosen” mentality.

But context matters. Verses 14-16 are not in a vacuum, but are part of larger passage.

And the rest of the passage says God is “not partial” and brings justice and love for all.

Some of us Christians might think, “That’s more like it!”

But it is important to note and not over look the fact that God does elect the Israelites to be God’s chosen people.

This does not mean God does not love everyone else or that we can justify division.

Rather, God chose the Israelites to be the people that reveal the character of God to the whole world

and show the world what it’s like to live in covenant-faithfulness.

Friends, That is precisely why they must show God’s love to the stranger.

And, because of our election into God’s family through Jesus Christ, WE TOO must do the same.

Deut. 10:14-22 both illustrates the foundation of God’s law and nature -

unconditional love and justice-

and also models specific ways to treat the foreigner:

with dignity, with empathy, without partiality, and by advocating on their behalf.

In the New Testament this theme is given even greater emphasis through Jesus’ call to welcome the stranger,

his ministry outside the borders of Palestine,

and Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles.

As God entered into human life in Jesus,

God included more and more people in the work of showing the world who God is.

This does not erase the special covenant God has with the Jewish people;

it is evidence of it – the world increasingly comes to know the God of Israel.

Again, As people who have been incorporated into the “new covenant” of Jesus’ blood,

we too are called to treat the stranger with dignity, empathy, impartiality, and by advocating on their behalf.

Period.

#seriously

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU

The core motivation in this passage is empathy:

“...for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Are there any stories from your own family’s history that might help you relate to the new immigrants among us?

How were your ancestors treated when they first arrived in America?

Dr. Arthur Sutherland from Loyola University, points out the centrality of hospitality to God’s plan.

He wrote on page 206 in I his book, “I was a Stranger: A Christian Theology of Hospitality:

“Since God will always be a stranger to us, receiving God is receiving a stranger, someone different from us” (pg. 206).

Receiving God, therefore, is an act of faith and so is receiving others.

In fact, as Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 25:40:

“I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!”

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US

So here are some important questions for us to reflect on:

Over time, how welcoming has your church been to the stranger?

What did Newton look like back in 1963? How has Newton changed demographically since then?

Does our congregation reflect that change in its make-up?

We all know the answer to that question. It does not. It still looks mostly like the demographics of 1963.

Why is that? I am sure it was not intentional...

But that is because we, along with many churches, have NOT BEEN intentional about showing hospitality to those who are the “stranger”.

Moving forward, this will become a focal point for us…how do we become a more hospitable place for the stranger?

I pray that you join me and our church leadership on that mission. Amen? Amen.