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No Outsiders

Ephesians 2:12-13

There are two things I love about the Lady Liberty: her obviously Oscar-worthy cameo performance in the classic film “Ghostbusters 2”, and the incredible poem found engraved in bronze in the lower level of the statue’s pedestal.

Entitled “the New Colossus”, the poem calls her “the Mother of Exiles”, whose “beacon-hand glows worldwide welcome”. The closing lines of the sonnet are what really blow me away however:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Doesn’t that just sound like Jesus? The God who “defends the cause of the Fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner…”? 

The last several years have seen the news dominated by the issue of governments struggling to handle the masses of refugees displaced by the brokenness and violence in our world. Countries have been trying to work out if they can welcome these vulnerable people in or if they have to turn them away.

This has obviously been a huge source of controversy and before you tense up in anticipation of some political soap-boxing, let me say this : I have no clue whatsoever how to deal with this. Don’t get me wrong, I know that God and his people are always called to stand on the side of the oppressed - the Bible even describes Him as a “refuge” on multiple occasions. It’s just that it’s such a complex and demanding political situation that a person like me, whose only “expertise” is making noise in an Irish fashion, just isn’t going to be able to work out how to best make that happen in the real world. The whole thing is a mess - a horrible, tragic mess - and my best response is to pray for wise leaders to make decisions that are loving to the displaced, and to support excellent charities like Preemptive Love Coalition who ease their suffering.

The point I want to make, and the only comfort I find in this horror, is that though the kingdoms of this world struggle for an answer, the kingdom of Heaven does not.

The answer is the cross of Jesus Christ. 

There Jesus opened wide the arms of grace and flung wide the gates of His kingdom.

Vagabonds, wanderers, outcasts and rebels are all invited - “whosoever believes in Him” - because there is no border control for the greatest kingdom of all and there are no outsiders to the love of God.  

We all meet Jesus as beggars knocking on a stranger’s door, seeking mercy, asylum, refuge. And He never slams the door in our face, but rather beckons us near. 

So what is our take away from all of this?

Firstly we need to respond with gratitude, never forgetting that we were once “foreigners…without hope and without God”. We should never lose the wonder or become complacent, as though we deserve the welcome we’ve received in Christ, and this should lead us to a posture of worship.

But the most important way for us to respond is to follow our Father’s example and be a source of refuge to the world. That could mean ministering to literal refugee communities in your area, spending some time with the homeless guy you usually drive past on the way to work, or just simply being being inclusive to those who feel like outsiders to the love of God. When we become a safe space for the vulnerable we reflect the heart of Christ, our refuge.

After all, if a lifeless statue can be a symbol of hope to the world, how much more so should the living, breathing body of Christ?

May we be the church we are called to be and let the gospel “glow worldwide welcome” in the darkness.

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