SECURITY, SYRIAN REFUGEES & CHRISTMAS

Jesus and his parents were Middle Eastern refugees. They fled to Egypt. It is excessively ironic to turn refugees away while setting up a manger scene and hanging Christmas decorations. The xenophobic response of 30 American governors who have issued statements refusing to allow Syrian refugees into their states, is insupportable.  Of course we deserve to be protected and we are obliged to properly vet refugees entering Canada and the United States. So let's do that but I am suggesting that people like me, with a worldview influenced by faith in Christ, must discern crises with empathetic eyes.  We can be cautious but we cannot be supportive of panicked protectionist bigoted positions. In a dramatic moral teaching moment Jesus declared that, "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'" He followed that remark with this. "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." You can debate the definition of 'brothers and sisters' yet one of the least of these is mentioned as 'the stranger," for which the original Greek term was 'xenos,' meaning 'foreigner, immigrant, or stranger.' Jesus is the King about whom he himself speaks and he takes personally how we treat the stranger. (Matthew 25:31-46)