I had previously lived in Margate, a little tourist town in Kent which in recent years has received an influx of refugees. During my time there I had experience snobbery and racism of some churches and seen how the local community responded to others that looked or could be compared to a refugee. Refugees are generally treated as the leech of society and those that are primarily responsible for theft and assaults in the community. This sort of reputation made everyone afraid of being kind or compassionate to anyone that looked like a refugee which also included me.
The culture and history of the people of the Bible could teach us a few things. For they were led to the presence of a stranger being seen as an opportunity to love. The norm was hospitality and sharing of one’s home and resources with strangers or sojourners. Over and over, we find stories of visitors being welcomed. Abraham welcomed the strangers by the Oaks of Mamre, who turned out to be messengers from God who blessed him with the promise of a son. In Exodus 2, Moses is welcomed into Reuel’s home. God commanded Moses to set aside cities of refuge in Canaan (for both Israelites and those who sojourned among them) so that people could seek asylum from those who sought to kill them. The widow of Zarephath welcomed Elijah into her home when she had only one meal to offer, but God filled her pantry as fast as it was emptied and Elijah remained for many days.
The foreigner Ruth was generously welcomed by Boaz, Naomi’s kinsman. We know of the hospitality of Mary, Martha, and Zacchaeus to Jesus, and of the disciples to “the man” they met on the road to Emmaus after the crucifixion. When Jesus sent out his disciples to teach and heal in his name, he instructed them to take little with them and trust in the hospitality of those they would meet along the way. Openness to those who needed a place to stay or a bite to eat was, in Biblical times, only the beginning. Sojourners, at times, stayed for months or even years. Moses and Jacob are examples who contributed their labor to their hosts, and each found a wife in their host’s family.
Hospitality involved the offering of food, drink and shelter to the stranger in need, but it was much more than that. Hospitality was an attitude of the heart, out of which such generous actions naturally flowed.
Look at Matthew 2:13-23, even Jesus was a refugee.
13Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
Herod Kills the Children
16Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
The Return to Nazareth
19But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” 21And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. 23And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
The Bible is a story of God’s intimate involvement with people as they live out their history. It is a story of movement and change as people and nations grow, mix, and take on various characteristics. It is a story of constantly renewed hopes for a better future. Yet, it is a story of God intervening and sending people out in new directions when life begins to look too settled, too full of routine, too full of pleasures, or too weighed down by sin. Hebrews 11, reviews the changes in direction experienced by the Hebrew people and affirms the people of God as “strangers and exiles on earth.” When we study the New Testament, we find God, once again, amidst those who are uprooted.
Jesus, the incarnate God, became a refugee while still an infant, fleeing with his parents to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath. As an adult, Jesus became an itinerant preacher, wandering with his disciples from place to place, living at times by gleaning from fields those extras that the ancient law ordered left for such sojourners. When Jesus described the last judgment, there was explicit identification of Jesus with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the prisoner, and the sick. It was in responding to such persons, the disciples were told that they would know they were responding to Jesus.
