James 3:1 (NIV) Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, first term congresswoman, recently told Church Militant {One of the most extremely political 'religious' sites I've ever seen} that the work being done by Catholic Relief Services to help migrants in the U.S. is, “What it is, is Satan’s controlling the church, the church is not doing its job, and it’s not adhering to the teachings of Christ, and it’s not adhering to what the word of God says we’re supposed to do and how we’re supposed to live." She then went on to say, with a mocking voice and gestures, "What they're doing by saying 'Oh, we have to love these people and take care of these migrants and love one another. This is loving one another'. Yes, we are supposed to love one another, but their definition of what 'love one another' means destroying our laws, it means completely perverting what our constitution says, it means taking unreal advantage of the American taxpayer, and it means pushing a globalist policy on the American people and forcing America to become something we are not supposed to be."
MTG interview clip {To watch the clip quoted above, click on the link}
Ok, so a politician has declared that when Catholic Relief Services helps migrants they are abandoning the Word of God and the teachings of Christ, that any definition of 'love one another' is only applicable to those who, evidently, have not broken society's laws (in this case regarding immigration). What then did Jesus say on the matter?
The text that MTG appears to be quoting (and horribly misunderstanding) is John 13:34-35
John 13:34-35 (NIV) “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
In that context, Jesus is telling his disciples that once he is gone, they will be known to the world as his followers if they demonstrate love to each other. In other words, the followers of Jesus Christ are commanded to love each other, it is not optional. What then does love look like?
I'm glad you asked, because the answer is important.
1 John 3:17-18 (NIV) If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
The Apostle John gives an illustration of what Jesus' command means. In order to love a brother or sister in need, one must be willing to share material possessions with them. A person who claims to be a Christian, but is unwilling to help someone in need, especially a fellow believer, is not really a believer at all, as John said, "how can the love of God be in that person?"
James 2:14-17 (NIV) What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
Likewise, James the half-brother of Jesus, is incredulous that anyone could claim to be a person of faith and yet not do anything to alleviate the physical needs of a brother or sister in Christ.
Are the migrants trying to come to America Christians? So as to remove any wiggle room, there isn't any either way, but this sharpens the point, yes they are. Overwhelmingly the migrants coming from Central and South America are professed followers of Jesus Christ. They are NOT 'them', they are NOT an 'other'. As believers in the universal Body of Christ, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, they are us, and we are them. They are as much a part of the Universal Church as we are, and failing to help them, when and where we, individually and collectively, can is not simply a political choice, it is a sin.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 (NIV) Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
So, rather than being a perversion of the Gospel, helping migrants in need, who are also Christians, is exactly what Jesus would command us to do. We are all a part of the Body of Christ. Need more proof? That's fine, the Scriptures have plenty to spare.
Matthew 25:34-40 (NIV) “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Because they may be in our country illegally, MTG (and many other politicians and pundits) have declared their need to be 'off limits'. To help them is to encourage their lawbreaking, to have compassion on them is to endanger our nation, they say. This is the opposite of what God's Word declares. It is thinking like an American, not a Christian, and it is yet another illustration of the oft proved fact that when the Church and State mix together, it is the Church whose reputation is sullied. When we think of America First, and our Christian obligations sometime later (if at all), we sin.
This teaching of Jesus is not something confined to the New Testament, it is simply taking the lessons of the Hebrew Scriptures and broadening them to fit the New Covenant's global ambitions. A classic and powerful example of this is the book of Ruth. Ruth is a Moabite, a nation connected to Abraham's nephew Lot, and by the time of the her story, a bitter enemy of the Israelites. Ruth marries a Jew when he travels to her land with his family as refugees from a famine. When he dies, Ruth travels with her mother-in-law Naomi back to Judea to Naomi's husband's (also now deceased) village with little hope for the future. Ruth in Judea is not 'one of us', she is an outsider. The entire story's gloomy trajectory changes when a righteous man named Boaz ignores Ruth's ethnicity by going above and beyond what was required in the Law of Moses of landowners at harvest time to support widows, orphans, and foreigners. The extra kindness of Boaz begins a process which leads to his eventual marriage with Ruth and the bearing of a son named Obed, the grand-father of the great King David.
Leviticus 19:9-10 (NIV) “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.
It can be difficult to interpret and apply the Scriptures. Some passages are hard for us to understand, and some circumstances in life are convoluted enough to make finding the moral choice challenging. Whether or not to help migrants in need, no matter what nation they come to, or what nation they come from, is not such a case. It is a 'textbook example' of God's Law in action, reminiscent of Boaz's compassion on Ruth, and following the words of Jesus, James, and John.
Catholic Relief Services is NOT an example of "Satan controlling the Church". Helping migrants in need is NOT a perversion of 'love on another'. Politicians really need to stop pretending that they know the Bible well enough to speak for God.
Isaiah 5:20 (NIV)
20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
** Another implication of MTG's worldview is that 'they' don't deserve our help. This too is a massive fallacy when compared with the actions of Jesus. Jesus spent time, purposefully, among tax collectors, prostitutes, and 'sinners' precisely because the self-righteous in his generation declared them to be off limits to God's love; by finding faith among them and bringing them to repentance, Jesus proved otherwise.
We are not absolved of our command to help others in the name of Christ if those others in question are deemed by our society to be unworthy of compassion. No such distinction exists in the Christian worldview, all alike are sinners saved by grace, the hope of the Gospel is for everyone. When the AIDS crisis first hit, many self-righteous Christians didn't want to get involved because it was a 'gay problem', this was an abandonment of Jesus' own strategy, let us not repeat the mistake by casting aside those seeking refuge in our nation.
Luke 5:30-32 (NIV) But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Our place, a Christians, and as a Church, is among the lawbreakers, the outcasts, and the forgotten.
Further reading:
Martin Luther's experience with the plague spoke powerfully during COVID, his understanding of our obligation to our neighbors fits here as well.
The 'sin of empathy' fiasco is cut from the same cloth as MTG's new definition of 'love one another'
The folly of the "Sin of Empathy" - A self-inflicted wound to Christian Fundamentalism
Sermon Video: "You stood aloof", the failure to love your neighbor - Obadiah 10-21
The Folly of Angry Witnessing and the Folly of attacking Christians who befriend the Lost
Pastor Powell,
ReplyDeleteWhat you say is so true. Americans have come to politicizing too much…to the point of forgetting that Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. So many immigrants come to our country not only to better themselves, but also for many to save their families from brutality and even death. This is true for many of the Bhutanese, the Afghanies, and now the Ukrainians.
Thanks Deacon Dick, the Church in America has long (going back at least to the Anti-Irish era) held a view of foreigners, including immigrants, that is not compatible with the repeated commands in the Law of Moses regarding widows, orphans, and foreigners, that this has gained steamed in recent years is a troubling sign of unhealthiness in many of our churches.
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