Love the Immigrant as Yourself
Traditionally, Lent is the season when Christians fast, giving up sugary food or something else in order to focus on Jesus. But in Isaiah 58:6-7, God tells us there’s another kind of fasting that’s even more important:
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice, … and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter …?”
God wants us to fast by doing justice for the “poor wanderer.” So who is this? Well, in Hebrew, the word is מָרוּד (marud), which means being “driven from settled security into restless, often involuntary, movement—physically displaced, socially exposed, and emotionally unsettled.” In other words, exactly what immigrants in this country are experiencing right now.
So, through Lent and beyond, we’re going to study what the Bible has to say about immigrants and what it means for our church.
- Pastor Jacob will get us started on March 8 by preaching on Leviticus 19:33–34, where God commands us to love the immigrants who live among us jus t as much as we love ourselves.
- On March 15, Pastor Michelle will preach on Ruth 1:1–17, the story of an immigrant woman making a home for herself in her adopted country.
- On April 12, Pastor Michelle will preach on Psalm 146:1–10, which talks about God’s love and care for immigrants.
- On May 10, Pastor Michelle will preach on Jeremiah 7:1–11, where God tells the Israelites that they can only stay on their land if they stop oppressing immigrants.
- On May 17, Pastor Jacob will preach on Matthew 25:31–46, where Jesus says that he comes to us as someone who’s hungry or thirsty, naked or sick, a prisoner or an immigrant, and if we turn him away, we condemn ourselves to hell.
- And on on May 24, Pastor Jacob will preach on Ephesians 2:11–22, where Paul talks about how we were all immigrants once, but we’ve now been brought together as God’s children.
Come and join us!