The Christian response to refugees seeking asylum at the border is a far cry from the U.S. government response. (Art by Bro. Mickey McGrath, an Oblate of St. Francis De Sales, artist, author, and speaker. More on him at http://www.bromickeymcgrath.com and http://www.embracedbygod.org)
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
~ Hebrews 13:3
Today is Maundy or Holy Thursday, the day in Holy Week when the Jesus of Radical Love washed the feet of his disciples in a radical act of loving hospitality.
Back when Jesus walked, washing the feet of a guest in a home — even a stranger — was far from being a glamorous task. But somebody had to do it. And that somebody was usually the house servant.
Cleaning feet was an act of hospitality and hospitality was, and will always be, a powerful motif in Judaism, Christianity and Islam — the Abrahamic religions.
The theology of hospitality stems from the story of Abraham responding to three strangers outside his tent and his running around at a frantic pace to serve them as if they were three kings.
They turned out to be God in the form of three angels.
April-May is the peak time of the (very) hot-dry season in Belize. The feet of the poor folks do get dirty and dry and cracked. (They get caked with mud in the rainy season.) I had lived in Belize a short time when I became acutely aware of just how dirty — and bone weary — the sandled feet must get in the Holy Land clime.
Show dogs and rescued pets get treated with more care and dignity than human beings at our borders.
I can’t imagine how weary and sore the feet of desperate migrant get in their journeys of thousands of miles.
I certainly can’t imagine the Jesus of radical love and hospitality sanctioning the treatment of those desperate people by the United States government these days.
I can’t imagine it because no one can possibly believe that the Jesus of radical love supports the demonization of people fleeing poverty and violence to such an extent as to brand them as “animals.”
No one can possibly believe that Jesus who died on the cross for the sake of all people in all times would bless United States government policies that treat human beings with far less care and dignity than pet owners in the United States of America treat their rescue animals and show dogs.
Nobody can possibly deny that the Jesus who humbled himself all the way to the cross is a far bigger and better Jesus than that.
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