May 25, 2017

Love Your Immigrant Neighbor

Love our (immigrant) neighbor:

Our country has always been a nation of immigrants and entrepreneurs. Throughout our nation’s history, immigrants from around the world have kept our workforce vibrant and contributed to building a diverse population.  So, the question as Caring Christians is ‘How to love our immigrant neighbor?”

The simple answer is given to us in the Bible, “Love thy neighbor as thyself. “  It should be easy for us to follow this commandment, but of-course we are human, with our human failings, and so we make it more difficult than it needs to be. We become judgmental, or act out fear. We forget to trust in our God who watches over all people.  To become more open to the possibility of loving our immigrant neighbor and indeed all our neighbors, perhaps we need to do our best to ‘Be Christ to others and to See Christ in others.’  Maybe remind ourselves that the person we encounter who is so very different than ourselves in appearance might be going through the same ups and downs in life that we are experiencing. If we are open to accepting that each person is unique and different but still a beloved child of God maybe our perception will change and we will remind ourselves continually that we should reach out to everyone in Christian love because God, our Father, created them.

Lord God, Father of all creation, let us reach out to each person we meet as our neighbor.  We want to follow your word and love all our neighbors as ourselves. Our immigrant neighbor, our neighbor who makes us feel uncomfortable, the neighbor we have been quick to judge and the neighbor we don’t really want to interact with. Teach us to reach out to everyone in Christian love. Send us out into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you, through Christ our Lord. Amen