God’s Heart: A Dwelling Place for Strangers
His name was Aylan Kurdi. A name few of us remember or even bothered to learn. Yet, in September 2015, pictures of his lifeless 3-year old body on a Turkish beach seared our consciousness, at least temporarily, as they gave testimony to harrowing and horrifying human tragedy. A sea of humanity, numbered in the tens of thousands, had fled war-ravished Syria to find refuge from turmoil, disease, and starvation. They fled in search for shalom, not merely the absence of war and death, but the presence of peace, safety, security and a future for their families, especially the children. Like the ancient Hebrews who lived as aliens in Egypt, these refugees from death and darkness sought a home, a dwelling place, for their souls and spirits and as well as for their bodies.
Sadly, but predictably, controversy erupted in the United States, when the government who styles itself the land of the free and the home of the brave, welcomed those seeking homes and new beginnings. Many in this nation of immigrants reacted reflexively to an articulated fear of terrorism, particularly a fear that Muslims entering this country from the Middle East would enter unvetted and unscrutinized with hearts full of hatred for Americans and jihad in their souls. Many in this nation of immigrants set their minds and their rhetoric against the ones who were deemed different, mysterious, secretive, and strange. We were and are ironically a nation of immigrants who do not know how to treat immigrants.
Though misguided and uninformed, the fearful reaction of so many in America was in fact understandable. The threat of terrorism in this country is all too real, but we pay a high price if we allow that threat to eat away at the core of who we are as a nation and as human beings. The compounded tragedy is that the articulated fear of terrorism may for many people shield a more base and ugly fear of the extranjeros: the foreigner, the stranger, the alien, the other. The reality is that people fear a person of another race, culture, religion, or language although they are humans as well seeking a dwelling place, a home, a place where their full selves can blossom and explore the fullness of who they are within humanity and discover God during their journey.
The challenge to all of us who live in the Christian hope of eternal tomorrows is to see the extranjeros as ourselves. We must grasp and wrestle with the reality that we are emigrants on a pilgrimage to our heavenly home (Phil. 3:20–21). We must wrestle with and give meaning to the reality that our citizenship in heaven is not just about a future other-worldly experience, but about making the heavenly promise our present reality. As in Jürgen Moltmann’s eschatology, we are to bring the not yet into our present lives and praxis. Critically, such a theology, missiology and even Christology, has powerful implications for how we should view our time on earth. We are to bring kairos principles into the operation of the finite, chronos-limited space-time continuum of our daily lives. The day-to-day question is how do we do that?
Chief among our mission priorities must be how we treat other human beings, regardless of whether they are of the same ethnicity, culture, religion, or socio-economic background. The ancient Hebrews were charged to treat the aliens (strangers/immigrants) among them with basic human decency and justice since they themselves were once strangers and aliens in Egypt. What a powerful evocation of images for current western society, especially in the Americas. Remember that you were once strangers and immigrants, criminals, scoundrels, adventurers, and religious misfits who were seeking a dwelling place. Some wanted to find fortune, but many wanted to find shalom from the weariness of an old world that had run out of not geographical space, but rather space in the human heart, and desired the ability to imagine a world where people of diverse religious heritages namely, could live in tolerance if not harmony.
Whether immigrants or brought here in chains, were we not once strangers in this land which for some held the promise of being a city on a hill shining forth brightly as a beacon of Christianity and civilization? The command to the Hebrews was to remember their former status as aliens in Egypt. The injunction to us in the 21st century western nations of luxury reflect prophet Jeremiah words to the king of Judah: “Do justice and righteousness….Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger…” (Jer. 22:3). This is a call to not only refrain from committing harm, but to assertively promote justice. We can do that if our own hearts are dwelling places for God’s grace and mercy. Then, we will be compelled to be people who care about what happens to others, who demonstrate that concern by proactively taking up the cause of the immigrants among us.
We are the people in whose hearts God has pitched a tent (Jn. 1:14). The God who pitches a tent in our hearts in John’s gospel is the same God who sojourned with the patriarchs and matriarchs of faith. If God travels with us as with them, does not God expect us to care for the living Aylan Kudi’s, the ones still out there trying to find a dwelling place far from tyranny? Would not the discomfort of making room in our hearts for them be an act of sacrificial of love and worship as we become conduits of love and grace? Would not that be a joy, privilege, and a fulfillment of Christian love and human compassion? Or do we limit our exercise of compassion only to those whose ancestors snuck into this country on the Mayflower who were immigrants as well, ones who would have perished had it not been for the selfless kindness and grace of the indigenous people who showed compassion and radical hospitality for those strangers. The Pilgrims found a dwelling place here. Is this geographical dwelling place and the figurative one of our hearts now inaccessible due to ignorance, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia and more? Or are our hearts open as dwelling places where light and love pushes back the dark?
Foreshadowing the words of the Lord to Jeremiah, prophet Amos charged his listeners to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24). The image is of relentless, powerful waters against forces erected to oppress the vulnerable and deny humanity of the weak. Our prophetic witness must declare in our words and actions that justice for the stranger is not a luxury or a gift and cannot be something that is thought of as what someone else needs. Justice for the stranger is what we all need for justice is the road to healing. Justice is what is required of those of us who know what it means to be on the receiving end of grace. If we believe that God’s heart is a dwelling place for justice and grace big enough for us who were once estranged from God, then surely we know our expression of God must include making our hearts dwelling places of justice and grace for those whom we would call strangers. As surely as we reflect the very image of God we reflect each other and human connectedness represents the image of God in a wondrously and beautiful, mysterious way.
