Channel: Ethics Daily
Author: Drew Smith

Perhaps the most beloved story in the Gospels, and indeed maybe the favorite story for many from the entire Bible, is the story of Jesus’ birth. Even when it is not the time for Christmas, the familiar Nativity story lives on in our hearts and minds, narrating for us the incarnation of God into the world in the person of Jesus.

Yet, while we celebrate and retell the story with feelings of warmth and comfort, from its beginning to its end the story is a narrative about the rejection of Jesus as a stranger and alien in a foreign land.

Luke tells us that when Jesus was born, Mary laid him in a feeding trough because there was no room for him in the inn. Matthew narrates a story about a young family having to live a nomadic life because of the threat of governing authorities. While these stories may not be entirely historical, both birth narratives reflect what Jesus knew to be true about his own life, “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58).

Throughout his life, while Jesus did gather a small following, in most cases, he was rejected. The story of the incarnation, then, is a story about how the God of creation had entered into that creation as a rejected alien and stranger.

While the nation’s attention has been focused on health care reform, one of the most vital issues that has been and will continue to be debated is the issue of immigration.

Indeed, the debate over immigration is closely linked to the issue of health care reform. Many have voiced their opposition to any government funded health care that treats persons who are in the United States illegally. Many others, however, have argued that we have a moral obligation to care for all, whether they are here legally or illegally.

I am ill-equipped to answer questions about immigration from a legal standpoint, and I see the strengths and weaknesses of various positions on the issue. But as Christians who follow a Savior who himself lived as an alien rejected by his own, I am troubled that many folks are not concerned about developing a compassionate response to the immigration issue.
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Amen! I complained in the other healthcare thread about the lack of will to provide health care or health care insurance to illegal immigrants.  For me it recalls not the Nativity story, but the Sheep and the Goats (“what you did not do for the least of these..”) and the Good Samaritan.

I was amazed to find out that the word translated as “hospitality” in the New Testament was actually “love of the stranger/foreigner.”  So-o-o, how many of our deacons would qualify under St Paul’s description as “given to hospitality?”