Christian Call for Strangers in Our Midst.

Our Christian Call to Care for the Strangers in our Midst

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Catholic Commons

A Biblical and Theological Reflection

Maggie Helwig

The Hebrew scriptures are deeply marked by the experience of displacement. The story of the exile of Jacob’s descendents in Egypt, their time of wandering in the desert after being delivered from slavery, and, later, the deportation of a large part of the population of Jerusalem to Babylon, all became part of the self-understanding of the ancient Israelites. These stories of being uprooted and endangered in unfamiliar lands influenced the ethical teaching of the scriptures; frequently, the Israelites are reminded of their obligation to care for the stranger and the exile, “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10:19). Care for the displaced person is a priority in many Old Testament texts, not simply as an act of charity, but out of a sense of identity with the outcast.

The New Testament continues this emphasis on hospitality to the stranger and the alien. Throughout the gospels, Jesus is shown interacting with people who are foreign to his culture – a Samaritan woman (John 4), a Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:25-30) – and the stories are told in a way which emphasizes the “border violations” involved. Outsiders and those whose status is “irregular” clearly have a particular importance in Jesus’ ministry.

Moving even beyond the Old Testament sense of identity with the stranger, the New Testament texts present the foreigner and the outcast as those in whom we directly encounter God. In Matthew’s judgement parable (Matthew 25:31-46), the Son of Man presents himself as one who was “a stranger” and received welcome or rejection. Similarly, the author of the letter to the Hebrews draws upon Abraham’s hospitality at Mamre to stress that we encounter God in the person of the stranger (Hebrews 13:2).

Perhaps most important of all, when we read the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, we find Jesus himself entering our world as one of the excluded. In Luke’s gospel, Mary and Joseph are forced by imperial order to leave their home, and must search for shelter in a busy city where there is no room for an unimportant peasant couple. In Matthew’s gospel we see Jesus as a refugee baby, whose family must flee into a foreign country to avoid a politically-motivated massacre. In these stories, God comes among us as a wholly vulnerable displaced person.

In a meditation on the nativity story, the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton wrote,

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it – because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it – his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.

The imperative of care for the displaced and endangered is profoundly rooted in our Christian narrative; if we neglect this imperative, we are, in effect, turning away Christ himself. And we believe that the uninvited, displaced Christ meets us, sometimes, in those who come from situations of violence and oppression, those who have been “denied the status of persons” in their countries of origin, and who seek safety in Canada.

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Advertise. Economy. Propaganda

Le Roi reigne mail il ne gouverne pas. 

Recently I wrote a letter to my local Member of Parliament  expressing concern over some of the provisions of Bill C-31 (the perversely titled "Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act) which is already beginning a much harsher and less hospitable place for refugees. The Canadian Council of Refugees has pointed out that the provisions made in this bill will be unfair to refugees from designated countries, will grant sole power over refugee status to the Minister of Immigration - rather than a committee whose task would be to assess particular cases. The provisions will also allow for refugee claimants to be jailed, without review, for a minimum of one year. (http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/withdraw-anti-refugee-bill-c-31-protecting-canada-s-immigration-system-act). This is remarkably inhumane, it is also contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and International Law. 

 I also wrote expressing concern over the undemocratic procedures and general decline of political culture heralded by the Omnibus Budget Bill. I knew, even at the time of writing, that is was a crazy foolish gesture. I appealed to themes of justice and robust political culture to someone who grovels in adulation of some weird libertarian logic. Or, perhaps, at the end of the day, just another criminal in politician's clothing. At any rate, I did get a letter in return, which informed me that I had not addressed my criticism particularly enough, and also pointing out to me how great the Conservative government was with its Economic Action Plan and all the jobs they had added to the "Economy." I had composed my letter, initially, in response to a piece of propaganda I had received in the mail proudly touting the Tories commitment to the "Economy" and "Jobs". I had explained in the letter how politically and ethically reprehensible it was to use "The Economy" as a justification for undermining human freedom and dignity and debasing Canadian political culture. I suspect it did not compute. 

It seems the only language our current Canadian government speaks is that of "The Economy", and that in a particularly truncated way. My MP did use the word shamelessly to refer to the NDP, for their efforts in attempting to block the legislation referred to above, and therefore "harming the economy." Just what is the economy, though. Looking at the cuts that have been made recently the economy does not contain anything as substantial as, for instance, scientific research, education, environmental management, or other social services. What it does include is advertising - specifically advertising to praise the Conservatives "Economic Action Plan. In other words the Economic Action Plan ads are the Economic Action Plan end of story. As a recent CBC headline reveals: Conservatives commit $16M to 'action plan' ads while cutting programs. Approved funds just part of multi-million ad blitz by federal government. 

I was reminded again of Giorgio Agamben's work in The Kingdom and The Glory. Agamben argues that glory is a constitutive feature of modern political power. Power in the West, which has always assumed the form of an economy, that is, a government of people and things is actually constituted by the process of glorification, that is of liturgical ceremony and proclamation. In the phenomenon of advertising, then, we should be aware of what is going on. The "Economic Action Plan" is, in fact, a liturgical proclamation of the divine power of "the economy." Only last Sunday I heard someone say that "money was as essential as God." They said this not despondently or triumphantly but as though it were a lived reality. This is the message we are constantly fed, but  that does not make it true. Any true Christian (or Marxist for that matter) should quickly smell the stench of idolatry here. Yet the fact that it was said is far less disturbing than the reality that our behaviour is conditioned by this statement. 

Is This Child Dead Enough for You? » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Is This Child Dead Enough for You? » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

I felt like this article bore sharing on this site. I have been deeply troubled over the last few days at the victory celebrations I have witnessed, in people I know and respect, celebrating the re-election of Barack Obama. People who should know better but are either deluded by the smoke and mirrors of the American political scene, or else persist in subscribing to this perverse "lesser evilism" that has us all descending into a moral hellhole. These are dark times. When will we say that enough is enough? When will we agree that killing children is actually wrong, and that no amount of military might or flash rhetoric can make it right?

In conversation this evening someone mentioned to me the endearing photographs of Obama taken with children during his campaign. Now, on the Counterpunch site, I see the other side of the story. The child who has been killed at Mr. Obama's command. There is no celebration, there is no victory. There is no endearment, only a sick reality where children are valued only as cute or endearing subjects of the propaganda machine or tossed aside as useless chattel.

We don't need this grotesquery. The slick and sleazy campaign. The president with his noble face and his noble rhetoric and his kill lists. The endless security and the manufacturing of fear in order to pursue the eternal and infinitely perverse securitization of the world. The time has come to announce a simple and powerful truth. We are not afraid. We are not afraid of the world. We are not afraid of terrorists, we are not afraid of jihad or of economic ruin, we are not afraid of the media, or the powerful speakers, or the security cameras or the drones. We are not afraid of the financial elite or the power they command. We are not afraid of children. We are not afraid of human relationships.

We can learn this, the art of being unafraid. Collectively we can take up our common humanity and cast off the yoke of oppression, of surveillance and fear and mistrust. We don't need to hand up power to weak-minded foolish puppets whose idea of managing the affairs of the world is to fill the banks with money, the skies with death planes, and the streets with the wretched poor.