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First Sunday After Christmas

Matthew 2:13–23

Isaiah 63:7–14

There has been a great deal of discussion about immigration, migrants, and refugees recently. Then again, there is always significant amounts of discussion around these issues, as they are issues the world and, specifically, America have struggled with almost as long as we have existed as a country. With the recent refugee crisis in Europe, stemming from the violence in the Middle East, we have become even more focused on the issue. That discussion is in addition to the normal discussion Americans have about immigration from Mexico and Latin America. All of these events become even more tension-filled now that Americans elected Donald Trump as President. Whether it’s his comments from the election when he talked about Mexicans as “rapists,” among other insults, or his attempt to ban travel from Muslim-majority countries, our ability to talk about these issues has become even more difficult.

Throughout the decades in America, what has remained constant in this discussion is the rhetoric surrounding the issue, with the only change coming in who we vilify at the time. Whether it’s the Irish coming over carrying their Catholicism, which threatened to disrupt the Protestant majority, or Jews fleeing the Third Reich, but bringing their threatening clothing and odd-seeming beliefs (not to mention their propensity to keep to themselves), or Muslims with women wearing the hijab and their supposed threats of terrorism, those who wish to keep others out focus only on our differences, those parts of their lives Americans don’t take the time to understand. The rhetoric is one of fear and hate.

Unfortunately, for much of American history, significant parts of the church have been at the forefront of such rhetoric, often quoting parts of the Old Testament about keeping separate from others or the threats of intermarriage as justification for why we should keep America as a Christian (which is really code for white, evangelical, and Protestant) nation. That has begun to shift in recent years, as more and more churches become involved in refugee resettlement, but the years of accretion have laid a foundation of distrust and fear and hate, which churches must intentionally combat, as the church has been responsible for its creation.

This story about Jesus, then, comes at the right time, as Jesus fits so many of these categories. Jesus fits the definition of a migrant, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “A person who moves temporarily or seasonally from place to place.” Jesus also fits the definition of a refugee: “A person who has been forced to leave his or her home and seek refuge elsewhere, esp. in a foreign country, from war, religious persecution, political troubles, the effects of a natural disaster, etc.; a displaced person.” In fact, if we focus on the part of the definition that centers around religious persecution and/or political troubles, Jesus seems the quintessential refugee.

Jesus is fleeing genocide, caused by his appearance (and the belief that he is the long-expected Messiah, leading to the religious persecution), the slaughter of the innocents, as many people often refer to this passage. Joseph has to take his family to Egypt to keep them alive, then he has to go to Nazareth rather than Bethlehem, as Joseph is afraid to return his family to where they have been living for at least two years (based on the age of the children Herod kills) and possibly longer. In the gospel of Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary didn’t come from Nazareth down to Bethlehem for the census; that only shows up in the gospel of Luke. Instead, it sounds as if Joseph and Mary have always been living in Bethlehem. Thus, Nazareth becomes the place that takes in the refugee family, as they have had to resettle there. Jesus, then, spends the first three or so years of his life being forcibly relocated from Bethlehem to Egypt, then to Nazareth where the family has to begin all over again, as refugees today do. Joseph and Mary, though, are at least able to resettle in a place where they know the language, religion, and culture, unlike so many refugees today.

There is never any evidence that they struggle from this resettlement, but we also don’t have any information about the next ten or so years of Jesus’s life in any of the gospels. We do know that Joseph disappears, which would have made their life more difficult if he died or for some other reason was taken away from the family.

The passage from Isaiah draws on God’s salvation for the people of Israel when they were refugees, when they were fleeing Egypt, as well, and moving to what would become Israel. What is interesting to note, though, is what happens after they arrive. The first half of this passage talks about all that God has done for the Israelites, commenting, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.” The author of Isaiah clearly lays out the idea that people who have received such grace and salvation will never cease to appreciate such goodness in their life. The second half of the passage makes it clear that they have stopped remembering what God has done, though it ends with hope that such a view of the world will change.

The same pattern is true when we talk about how Americans have treated those who have come after us. All of us (save for those American Indians among us) came from immigrants, many as migrants and refugees, fleeing persecution. Our ancestors came here and set themselves up in new lives, working to provide for their children and grandchildren. Now that we are established, though, we turn against those who might come after us, treating them as the Other, even as our ancestors were so treated. The only hope we have is to see them all as Jesus, as ourselves, and to love them accordingly. Only then will we be able to say, as the end of the passage from Isaiah does, “Thus you led your people, to make for yourself a glorious name.”

Questions for Reflection or Discussion:

How should we as churches and as Christians help with the refugee crisis?

What can the church do to shift the immigration debate towards one of love?