Loading...Ever since I came to this diocese, I’ve been learning about and donating to Kentucky Refugee Ministries on your behalf because this is an important part of the diocese’s understanding of their requirement to follow God’s commandment to love one another.
Our own Canon Amy is the Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors at KRM. On their website, the organization describes their ministry this way: “Together as a community, we resettle refugees and welcome immigrants. Through KRM, you encourage hope, advocate for newcomers, and transform the lives of those seeking safety.”
As people of faith, we believe that we are called to help those who have been forced by some situation to flee their homeland, and to help them resettle and find safety here in Kentucky.
This type of ministry can be found across the world, embodied in people from any variety of faiths or human rights organizations to fulfill a commitment to ensuring the safety of others. It is something that has been seen throughout time. It is biblical and holy to create refuge for those in danger.
We see it in multiple places in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. If you’ve ever watched Charleton Heston in “The Ten Commandments” or are familiar with how the story is told in Exodus, you know that God desires safety for all God’s people. You also know that there are some people who think that only some people deserve safety.
Throughout history, as we read in scripture, the people of God are consistently mistreated, enslaved, and refused basic human rights. For many, their very lives are threatened by people who have power, whether that is as an employer or some who work as government leaders. It seems, that those in power feel they have the right to deny basic human needs and rights to those who most need them.
In today’s Gospel, we see another way in which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are put in danger. You may even consider them refugees, forced from any secure life they may have been able to find, to flee to anywhere that they would be able to find refuge and safety for their family.
I know there are some people who have a hard time believing that the Holy Family could be considered refugees, and it may feel like saying they are is a political statement. And maybe it is. But unfortunately, it is a timeless political statement. Some people in positions of power throughout all of history have developed systems and rules that create unsafe circumstances for the people they have been called to serve.
I decided for this morning’s Gospel reading to put two options together and to include verses that are not included at all in our lectionary, to make sure the story of the magi, the wise people who came from the East, was complete. To tell how their visit to the holy family created even more danger.
We don’t often tell this part of the first two years of Jesus’s life. We tend to jump over any mention of how Herod demanded that all male children aged two and under be killed because his ego was so huge he could not allow any new baby boy to live long enough to take over his role as King of the Jews. This genocide was just one way he thought he could remain in power.
This past Monday was The Feast of the Holy Innocents, and this coming Tuesday is the Feast of the Epiphany. Because these generally fall mid-week, we do not get to hear the stories of what happened in conjunction to the visit from the people from the East, the unnumbered magi, the scientists and astronomers who followed a star to find the baby born away from his home, among virtual strangers.
We tend to linger in what has been depicted as peaceful manger scenes, with shepherds and sheep visiting, and the clear, star-filled night above. We have romanticized the moment, praising God for the gift of this birth and rarely read what comes next, or if we do, we certainly do not want to think of the atrocity that occurred because of Herod’s insecurity. We don’t want to consider that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were under so much tyranny that they had to find refuge elsewhere to ensure that Jesus would live.
But not reading this part of the story means we might not understand just how important it is that Jesus was born. We might not know why Mary sang the Magnificat, praising God because the promises in scripture: to protect the lost and the lowly, the widows and the immigrants, the sick and the dying, the forgotten and the refugee, were to be fulfilled with this birth. We might not understand that Jesus did not come into this world with the kind of power that corrupts, or starts wars, but instead came to show the world how to embrace those who have been deemed un-embraceable, without value, and un-loveable.
Throughout the bible we are taught that we are to pay attention to those in the most complicated circumstances, to help them in whatever ways we can, to provide them safety and refuge, in a very mean and hurtful world.
Jesus was born to help us see the value of all that God has created. And to do this, Jesus had to become a refugee.
I’d like to read you this little book, a story told from the perspective of the donkey, who carried Mary to Bethlehem, and then continued the journey to Egypt.
It’s called “Refuge,” and was written by Anne Booth and illustrated by Sam Usher. When I purchased the book, $1 was donated to The UN Refugee Agency.
<read book[1]>
Like I said, some people have a very hard time seeing Jesus and his family as refugees, yet, they, like so many people from around the world, throughout history, have taken similar journeys to find safety for their families.
Here in Kentucky, we have KRM, the Kentucky Refugee Ministries, to help make a difference for these people, to provide them a safe place to land, with resources, services, and support to help them thrive at a time when they are afraid, ill-prepared, and have taken risks most of us would never imagine, and hope to never have to do.
We strive to make a difference in these lives, because it is what Jesus taught us and told us to do. And not just Jesus, throughout the Old Testament and New, we are frequently reminded to care for the immigrant, the refugee, those fleeing from untenable situations. We are called to be people of God, seeking and serving the least of these and the lost and forgotten.
Because when we do these things, we become a people and a place of refuge. Amen.
[1]Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. Booth, Anne; Usher, Sam: Refuge
