Refugees

Refugees

FAR FROM HOME

A Sermon by Kent Winters-Hazelton,
preached at the Claremont [California] Presbyterian Church
First Sunday of Christmas December 30, 2001

Isaiah 63:7-9 and Matthew 2:13-23

(Isaiah 63:7-9 NRSV) I will recount the gracious deeds of the LORD, the praiseworthy acts of the LORD, because of all that the LORD has done for us, and the great favor to the house of Israel that he has shown them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. {8} For he said, "Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely"; and he became their savior {9} in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

(Matthew 2:13_23 NRSV) Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." {14} Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, {15} and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." {16} When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. {17} Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: {18} "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more." {19} When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, {20} "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." {21} Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. {22} But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. {23} There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."

Matthew concludes his account of the birth of Jesus with a story that is uniquely his. The saga of Jesus' flight into Egypt is only recorded in this Gospel. Shortly after the birth of Jesus, Joseph was warned in a dream about King Herod's intent to murder the child. The warning, it seems, was very appropriate and timely. The King, enraged and vindictive, issued a shocking order to massacre the infant boys in Bethlehem.

Immediately, the reader is struck by the King's reaction. Why this sudden, decisive and murderous course of action? What in the world could this tiny infant offer as a way of a threat to Herod? Of course, there is more to the story than meets the eye. John Calvin commented on this story, "Christ, having just been born, begins to be crucified for us."

This story is significant to us for many reasons. Let me suggest two this morning. First, the encounter with Herod and the flight into Egypt provides us with the first evidence of human opposition to Jesus. Herod seeks the child's life. The baby is forced into exile, far from home. The powers that be conspire to destroy the power that is to come. This is a pattern that will escalate throughout Jesus' adult ministry.

The story of the people of God has always been one of people in exile, far from home. It began with Adam and Eve, expelled from the Garden of Paradise, and continued with Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew people, who came from Ur, near the Iraq/Kuwait border. Jacob and his sons were driven by agricultural conditions to leave the land that Abraham had found and go into Egypt. The early Israelites remained in Egypt for several generations, becoming not homesteaders but slaves in the Egyptian economy. Eventually, they were led back to the promised land by Moses, the land found by Abraham, but only after a 40-year period of being exiles in the wilderness desert between Egypt and Israel.

Matthew, in his account, connects Jesus with this history of the Jews in Egypt. Egypt was the land of refuge for those fleeing tyranny in Palestine. [Brown, The Birth of the Messiah] So Matthew quotes from the book of Hosea: "Out of Egypt I have called my Son." [Hosea 11:1] The writer of this Gospel connects Jesus with the most important story in the Jewish tradition, the Exodus, the central experience of the formation of the Jewish people.

What the Jews learned during the Exodus, and what they continued to affirm in their scriptures and liturgy, was that God had heard their cry when they were slaves in Egypt, and God acted on their behalf for their liberation. Matthew is now saying, God is still doing that. The story of the birth of Jesus fits into this tradition. "Out of Egypt," God says, "I will call my Son." Matthew tells his readers that God still acts on behalf of the liberation of the people of God. In the face of the horrendous plans of Herod, God intervenes and guides Joseph and the family away from the trouble and protects God's plans for the future of this child. God is at work, Matthew proclaims, even when the powers of this world are aligned against God.

We don't know if the stories of the slaughter of the innocent and the flight of Jesus into Egypt are historically true. But the fact is they are theologically true. They are theologically true because they tell us something about the nature and character of God. This is our second learning drawn from this text.

For example, our understanding of God's love has been illustrated by Biblical stories of exile. The people of God were regularly found in exile, living life as strangers in a strange land, refugees far from home. But in these stories, God can be seen as the protector and guide to displaced people. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." [Leviticus 26:13] This was something the Jews were never to forget nor neglect. They knew their God because God had acted for them. But their understanding was not to be limited to the rituals of their worship; it was to be part of their life as well. Because of God's activity on their behalf, they, too, were to act with charity toward those who were strangers: "You shall not oppress a stranger," God spoke in Exodus, "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." [Exodus 23:9, see also Deuteronomy 10:19]

Let me suggest a practical application of this biblical principle. 2001 marks the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Refugee Convention. It was established to help those who were displaced following the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. In the years since the establishment of the charter, over 50 million people have been assisted by the provision of this accord.

Yet today the problem of refugees in the world may be bigger than ever. When I visited the World Council of Churches in October, we were briefed by Beth Ferris, the director of the refugee work for the council. She told us that before September 11, the year 2001 was a horrible year for refugees, one of the worst in memory. She gave several reasons for this fact.

The number of refugees is simply staggering. Estimates suggest that there are as many as 20 million displaced people in our world today. Many more could be counted as internally displaced people; that is, they are moving from one place to another within their own country to avoid ethnic conflict or war. The numbers are increasing year by year. The resources needed to support refugee efforts have overwhelmed the system.

Second, the attention given to the refugee problem has declined significantly in the last few years. Many national governments were elected on a platform of keeping immigrants out of the country. We must "take care of our own first," has been a common and popular campaign theme. Earlier this year, Australia offered $20 million to any other country that would take a boatload of refugees off its hands. According to Ferris, churches are in a quandary. Denominational headquarters continue to affirm the need to assist refugees, while local churches say they can't offer any more help. Offices that have been dealing with displaced people have been closed down, staff cuts have been deep. More than once Ferris reported hearing from a church leader, "We did refugees last year. This year we are doing the environment."

Third, there is the complexity of the problem posed by the advancement of the global economy. Basically stated, the economic and social conditions that once provided people with the means to survive in their traditional communities have broken down, which in turn has accelerated the movement of people across borders. There is a great inequality of wealth between the industrialized nations of the North and the underdeveloped countries of the South. Furthermore, the emerging trade relations between the wealthier nations are working to the disadvantage of economically weaker countries.

The inclusion of the story of Jesus as a refugee, protected and guided by God, offers us some guidelines for a Biblical reflection on this growing problem.

First, we recognize that God became known to us in the person of Jesus Christ who was himself a refugee. This encourages us to watch for and care about the stranger in our midst. We are reminded to uphold the life and dignity of all uprooted people. A report issued by The World Council of Churches says, "people leave their communities for many reasons, and are called by different names -- refugees, internally displaced, asylum-seekers, migrants. As Churches, we lift up all those who are compelled by severe political, economic and cultural conditions to leave their land and culture." We lift up those who are displaced by defending legal and human rights and promoting international standards for refugee populations. [The Church of the Stranger: Risking to Be in Solidarity with Uprooted People. A report given at the Fourth World Congress on Migration, the Vatican, October 1998. Document found at www.wcc-coe.org.]

Second, we see in this story once again, God's love for those who are strangers, who live as outsiders and on the edge of society. The Bible constantly speaks of the values of love, justice, equity on behalf of marginalized and excluded people everywhere. In response, the church should study the issues that cause the great displacement of people, and work for economic and political justice for those persons who are without voice or power in the face of global, economic and military changes.

Last, a sub-theme of the gospel story is that Jesus went to a Gentile land, and we can recognize that the reign of God is beyond the land and the tradition of the Hebrew people. And so we are challenged by the Biblical imperative to build inclusive communities. Churches need to support the initiatives of uprooted people as they seek to establish themselves in new communities. We need to engage in steps to live out our faith positively in diverse communities. A community cannot be inclusive if only the "other" -- the stranger -- is required adapt and conform to existing norms and identity. [ibid]

In our seminar, Beth Ferris told us many heartbreaking stories of displaced people around the world. Let me tell you just one of her stories that goes to the heart of our faith. She told us about a woman who was a professor at a college in Angola who had been uprooted during the war there and exiled into Mozambique. After several years there doing day labor, she was brought to Geneva for a conference Beth had put together for professional women refugees. During the meetings, Beth noted that the woman was very subdued and withdrawn from the activities of the conference. After several conversations, Beth was able to gleam from the woman that when she was taken by force out of Angola, her glasses had been smashed. For five years she had been existing without them. In her current work, she could not afford to buy another pair. Through these years she had been virtually blind.

That evening Beth told the woman's story to her family. She complained that her budget at the office was overspent and she couldn't help one woman without feeling the concern for all the others.

Her teenaged daughter who never had much patience with bureaucracy, said, "Mom, I have my own credit card now. I'll take her to one of the places that make glasses in an hour and pay for it myself."

Beth said she will never forget the tears that flowed down the face of her tough, rebellious daughter when the woman from Angola placed the glasses on her nose and proclaimed boldly, "I can see. I can see."

Our reading from the prophet Isaiah this morning reminds us,
It was no messenger or angel but the presence of the Lord that saved them; in God's love and pity, God redeemed them; God lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

Thanks be to God.