“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31
We are facing a turning point in our privilege as American Christians. We’re facing a choice that defines who we are as followers of Christ, and will define how the rest of the world sees us. We need to choose between rejecting those in need with our own selfish comforts in mind, or to take them in and love them as our own, and I think it would be safe to assume what Jesus would do.
Friends, this isn’t a political problem, or even a religious or ideological problem. Our reaction as the American church towards the refugees is a mixture of spiritual gluttony and an overindulgence of Western comfort. It is our seemingly innocuous attempt to protect ourselves from people that we don’t think we can trust, when in reality that’s not even the problem. The problem is that we are so drunk on our own self-righteousness, that we don’t think our God is big enough to protect us.
But here’s the part that makes us really uncomfortable as American Christians: God doesn’t promise to keep us safe during our walk with him. In fact, he promises us the opposite. In John 16:33, Jesus says to his disciples, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” And if you need more convincing, just look at Paul. He was the man who wrote most of the New Testament, yet he was imprisoned, nearly stoned to death, and wrote of an illness that God never took away from him. But that didn’t stop him from doing what God asked him to do. So why is it stopping us?
I know you’re afraid, and I know I am, too. But I also know that the God I serve has a plan for me, and if I should die tomorrow, I know I will be safe in his arms. We have no reason to fear death when we’re secure in his love, and if you do then it may be a symptom of disconnect in your relationship with God. We should never be so concerned with our personal safety, that we disobey the command that God has given us.
If we don’t conduct our lives with the boldness to step up when others don’t, the fearlessness of Christ in us, the love that Christ showed us, and the forgiveness that he bought for us, then are we any different than the rest of the world? Will you stand by the calling that he has placed in your life, or will you stand among the scorners and let his sacrifice go to waste?
I’m not a politician, and I’m not an expert. But I am a Christian, and so I know where I stand.
“When the Nazi’s came for the Communists, I remained silent; I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.”
Martin Neimoller, Lutheran Pastor who spent the last seven years of the Nazi reign in a concentration camp. (source: ushmm.org)
