The Bible begins with a beautiful creation liturgy, followed by a creation story, a flood story and a tower story. Genesis 2-11 just reads differently than the rest of the Bible. Scholars say that the historical portion of the Bible begins in Genesis 12 where God calls Abraham and Sarah. Jesus spoke of “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” not the God of Adam, Eve and Noah.  (Matthew 22) The Bible begins with God calling: “Now the Lord said to Abram (and Sarai), “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you… and I will bless you, so that you will be a blessing… in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  The Bible opens with God’s command to immigrate and through immigration God’s promise to bless every family on earth.  

Abraham’s grandson Jacob will become an immigrant only returning home after years abroad.  Abraham and Sara’s great grandson, Joseph, will be sold by his brothers down the river into Egypt. Joseph will struggle, landing in prison, before rising up to save Egypt. Joseph will name his second son Ephraim or “fruitful” because  “God has made me fruitful in the land of my misfortunes.” (Genesis 41)  Pharaoh changed Joseph’s name to  Zaphenath-paneah meaning “one who deciphers the hidden”. Joseph married Asenath  the daughter of a priest of the sun god, called Ra.  (Gen 41) As the story goes a famine wiped out all the grain in Israel, so ten of Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph’s brothers do not recognize their brother Zaphenath-paneah.  Why would they?  Joseph dresses, cuts his hair, speaks and walks like an Egyptian. But more than that, Joseph, their brother who they sold, lords over them on an Egyptian throne. Joseph could take a just revenge, but instead shows mercy, bringing his dad and brothers, some 70 people, to Egypt as refugees, preserving their lives during an ecological disaster.  How does God save Egypt and the Israelites? God saves the nation through immigration.  The Bible is an immigration story.  

But in time, the Pharaohs forgot that an immigrant had saved the nation and falling into fear, Pharaoh began to abuse the Hebrew people. God sends Moses back to Egypt after Moses had fled to Midian (immigration). Moses will demand freedom for the oppressed people and (you guessed it) guide the people along an immigration journey to a Promised Land. Exodus tells us over and over again, through  plague after plague, how Pharaoh’s heart was hardened to the plight of the immigrants in his land.  In Mark 3, Jesus is angry and grieved over church people hardening their hearts to others needs.  Now, the Bible does not lay out a plan for compressive immigration reform, or if it does it is one of open borders. However, the Bible reminds us against hardening our hearts. God warns us not to trample over anyone’s God-given, inalienable human rights. If we harden our hearts towards  a group of people, we forget our own immigrant story, and align ourselves with the Biblical villains. 

Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy tell this same immigration story. Deuteronomy 26 prescribes a thanksgiving liturgy upon entering the promised land or blessed community. After making a harvest offering, we stand before the altar and confess to God and one another: “‘My ancestor was a wandering (starving) Syrian; who went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and they became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly, imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord,  who saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand’  Then after this prayer deeply identifying with immigrants, Deuteronomy prescribes that we “celebrate the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you, together with all the aliens who reside among you”  The liturgy reminds us that at our human core we are immigrants. Jesus put it like this: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me in!” (Matthew 25) 

The Ten Commandments remind us to observe a sabbath rest each week. Worship and rest keep us from chasing after the marketing gods and renew us with faith, hope and love. Deuteronomy 5 commands “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy… Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your children, or your workers, or your oxen or donkey, or the resident alien in your towns, shall do no work:  so that your workers and the resident aliens may rest just as you rest. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”  Every week, rest and give rest to others, remember the aliens who reside around you. Remember your immigration story, even if it goes back 200 or 2,000 years, remember everyone’s God-given, foundational, inalienable rights, human rights.     

The New Testament expands the Biblical immigration story as God’s very self comes and dwells with us: migrating from heaven to humanity. John’s Prologue declares that the Word of God that spoke our world into existence: “the Word became flesh and lived among us”.  Matthew tells us that the holy family itself became actual refugees, fleeing King Herod.  Matthew editorializes “This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”  Matthew wants us to know Jesus was an immigrant. On Monday I chatted with a crusty Christian, who was delighted to hear our current president’s desire to push foreigners out.  I gently reminded them that “Jesus was a foreigner”.     

In Luke 10 , a religious expert asked Jesus to clarify “who really is my neighbor”:  who am I called to treat in the way I want to be treated? Jesus gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan, wherein Jesus defines “neighbor”, not by race, nation or geographic boundary but by the opportunity to show mercy.  “Who is your neighbor? The one who showed mercy! Go and do likewise.”  Do not harden your heart.  Do not close off your hearts to your neighbors, for when we stop offering mercy to strangers, minorities, immigrants or the other side,  we start down a path of spiritual death- a hardening of our spiritual arteries, closing of our hearts to the renewing power of Love and compassion. 

I am not suggesting that our nation does not need some kind of comprehensive immigration reform, but if we forget to care for “the least of these”, we have forgotten our humanity: that all of us are at times strangers, sick, immigrants, imprisoned, unhoused, hungry, afraid, and oppressed.  Do not harden your heart, remember you were immigrants.  Go and show mercy.  

In Acts and Paul’s letters,  the early church, perhaps marginalized itself, begins to understand a more universal message.   Paul declares “that our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3). We are not citizens of the United States, Israel or Mexico, but citizens of heaven, who belong to each other.  The early church painfully understood that their own nation’s religious and political leaders had crucified Jesus- and they declared that Jesus was their Lord, and therefore Julius Caesar, King Herod, or even King David were not. (Acts 7)  

In Acts 2, God’s Spirit falls on the church in power at Pentecost. “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs we hear about God’s deeds of power in our own native tongues.”  In Acts 8, Philip baptizes an Ethiopian Eunuch, one cut off from the church by Levitical laws. (Lev. 21) In Acts 10, Peter declares “God has shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean.”  Peter then baptized Cornelius, a Roman centurion, an icon for almost everything different from Paul’s Jewish upbringing. Paul was no longer just a Jewish citizen, Paul’s primary identity resided in something grander- being a child of God.    

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul teaches ”Christ is just like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many. We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink.” There is a deep universality in that verse that transcends all boundaries: God is not the God of any one nation. Paul is taking apart the ideas of a “chosen people” and saying all people are adopted or chosen by God.  In Galatians 3:26-28 Paul writes “for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith… There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Paul would call the gentiles like us “a wild olive shoot” grafted into the Olive Tree that was Israel. (Romans 11)  In Ephesians 2 Paul writes that Christ has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between (Jews and Greeks)… We are no longer strangers and aliens, but we are fellow citizens.”    

We stand 2000 years and 6000 miles away from deeply radical inclusion, so it is easy to fall back into the sin of particularity, of thinking God only cares about our people. Leviticus 19 and Exodus 12 instruct us “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. If we will open our hearts to Christ, placing our trust in God rather than our politicians or rulers, Christ will disassemble every dividing wall we build around race, immigration status, gender, or wealth: we will become citizens of heaven placing people over tribes, political parties, nations or status.  Jesus calls us, “I was a stranger, will you let me in? I was sick, I was hungry…”   It is not to say a nation can’t write immigration laws, but if we legislate with a hard heart, if we write laws against people, we will land on the wrong side of God, our humanity, and history.  

 All of us are immigrants, imprisoned, strangers, sick, afraid, hungry and unhoused. Do not harden your heart. Jesus comes to us not on a war horse waving a flag to rally the troops. Christ comes humbly, his feet dragging the ground, a palm branch specter, a crown of thorns, and a cross instead of a throne. Gaze upon Jesus crucified. Do not harden your heart. Do not look away.  God did not God’s heart despite our callousness.  Give thanks for our bounty, do not fall into fear like Pharoah. Offer your gifts and say “My Ancestor was a wandering Syrian and Jesus, my Lord comes to me as a stranger”.   Beloved, we are all immigrants-strangers moving towards our citizenship in heaven. God calls each of us like God called Abraham and Sarah to be a blessing to the entire . Remember your humanity, remember being a stranger, do not harden your heart, show mercy, be a blessing to the whole world. Amen.