You may notice the new banner on the lawn on Sunday … or any day you happen to be at All Saints between now and Christmas.
The graphic comes to us via Episcopal Migration Ministries and is from an eighty year old a poster created by the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio for the 1938 Christmas season encouraging Americans to welcome Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. It reminds us that the Episcopal Church has a long history of being in the forefront of living out the Gospel imperative to love our neighbors as ourselves — including those neighbors seeking refuge from persecution and oppression.
The text is from the centuries old text in Deuteronomy reminding the people of Israel to treat the refugees in their midst as neighbors — for they themselves were once refugees in Egypt. It reminds us that God’s call to us to be agents of hope, healing and welcome is inextricably woven into the fabric of the history of our faith.
And the challenge is as heartbreaking as today as we mourn the death of seven year old Guatemalan refugee Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin — and grieve the inhumane immigration and asylum policies that victimize and criminalize those seeking hope and freedom. The breaking and heartbreaking news reminds us that the struggle is real, that the challenges are great and that we are called to stand together with all those working to protect our core American values of liberty and justice for all and live out our core faith value of loving neighbor as self.
On Sunday, December 16 we put our faith into action by joining in the request to the United Nations Human Rights Council to send observers to the U.S. – Mexico Border to witness, document and report on the Trump administration’s human rights violations … with copies to our Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.
Stop by the Action Table to sign on to this important letter and make your voice heard as we do our part to live out God’s radical love and welcome in our generation … standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.
