Introduction

With a record 103 million people being forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide, we are faced with the worst refugee crisis in history. Closer to home, immigrants, refugees, and asylees make up about a third of Oakland’s population. Immigrants often come to United States seeking better economic and educational opportunities for their families. Refugees and asylees often need safety from war, violence, disasters, or persecution. What sources and resources help you learn more about this migrancy crisis?

God calls us to “welcome the stranger” and to generously love and embrace the sojourner. Everyday Welcome at FCC seeks to be the hands and feet of Christ by welcoming immigrants, refugees, and asylees in our midst.  We do this by coming alongside immigrant families in friendship, advocacy, support, and prayer.

Matthew 25:31–46

How does Jesus’ parable challenge the usual definition of hospitality?

Jesus challenges us to include those with whom we least desire to have connections. The poor and sick come with their inconvenient needs and conditions, with their incapacity to reciprocate. But in welcoming them, one anticipates and reflects the welcome of God (Pohl and Buck 21). How does our welcoming of strangers reflect God’s welcome of us?

25:35-36 I WAS HUNGRY…THIRSTY…STRANGER…NAKED…SICK…IN PRISON. With what criteria are people judged by? The only criterion is works of mercy toward one’s neighbors. The Last Judgment begins in the earthly life of the person and takes place every moment when one chooses or neglects to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit those in prison, or share with those in need. Christ's words about the Last Judgement are not a threat of retribution, but a call to do good (Cunningham and Theokritoff 112). How does it make you feel knowing that the way you practice everyday welcome will be judged in the end?

25:37 THE RIGHTEOUS WILL ANSWER HIM, ‘LORD, WHEN WAS IT THAT WE SAW YOU? Are “the righteous” necessarily Christians? It does not seem so. The righteous behave lovingly toward the hungry, homeless, refugees, and prisoners. They do not act this way because they have been taught that in so doing they do it to Christ. Indeed, they are surprised to learn that their acts of compassion were in fact done to him. Nor do they do it out of duty, or to earn a reward. We do not, in fact, know why they do it, or who they are. They may be atheists, Jews, Muslims; they may be addicts, convicts, whores. The tax collectors and the prostitutes will go into the kingdom of God ahead of some religious people, asserts Jesus (Matt. 21:31). Apparently, Jesus' God is interested in one thing only: whether we behave in a way consistent with the divine order that is coming. Our religious preferences, practices, and affiliations are, next to that, a matter of indifference (Wink Loc. 2457). How does this affect the way you under “being righteous”?

25:40 JUST AS YOU DID IT TO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE…, YOU DID IT TO ME. Our actions, for good or ill, are more far-reaching than most of us ever imagine (Talbott). Hidden beneath the face of the stranger is the face of God. We are to treat the stranger as a neighbor because the Son of Man has become that stranger (McCormick 104). Those who have welcomed strangers and have met the needs of persons in distress have welcomed Jesus himself, and are themselves welcomed into the Kingdom (Pohl and Buck 21). Would our churches take Jesus in today – feed Him, clothe Him, offer Him a bed?

One way of interpreting this text is that Jesus is telling his own story so that his disciples will know where to find him. That is, when we show hospitality to those in prison and those who are sick, hungry, thirsty, and naked, we discover the risen Christ, who has chosen to be there with those who need God’s help and ours. By this reading, the text is not so much an agenda of do’s and don’ts but a promise that Christ will be there, as unexpectedly as it may seem to us, among broken people. Our biblical traditions remind us that, in the practice of hospitality, we entertain Christ unawares and are surprised by the unexpected divine presence (Russell 83). Can you share of time where you met Jesus among the broke and the broken?

Reflection

What do you think it would look like to love resident aliens in your community?