The Good Samaritan.
Jesus had shown us how the man the Kingdom of Heaven can accomplish when He spoke of the good Samaritan because everybody thought that the Samaritans [people who lived in the centre of Israel] were potential traitors and scum [Matt. 25: 31-46].
The wisdom of God, however, just launched a limited extent, it appears that the transmission of the Word is drowned out by background noise.
Christ turns to us and says: ” Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, for behold, the days are coming when they will say. Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: Fall on us, and to the hills. Cover us for if they do these things in a green tree? What shall be done with the dry? ”
One should not want to dominate, however, but should:
”You know that those who rulers of the Gentiles are called,
exercise dominion over them and their great men exercise authority over them.
So, however, it is among you.
But whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant, and
whoever wants to be first among you, all slaves will be “.
Matth. 20: 25-27 ; Marc.10: 42-44 and Luc. 22: 25-26
Then sent Large Alien His disciples to ” all nations bringing” the good news and
they emigrated and brought Christianity to people in foreign countries.
So, here are other “foreigners”! Holy foreigners.
They came
- the Celts of Britain [holy Aristobulus, one of the 70 disciples of Christ]
– India [H. Thomas, the former “infidel”] and
most were killed after torture by foreigners as foreigners they were buried in a foreign country, and we carry the Divine Liturgy with altars – which as a blessing – contain their mysterious relics.
“Christians live as visitors in their homeland.
Every foreign land is their homeland, and every fatherland is foreign to them.”
letter to Diogenite 2 e century AD
This is because our true homeland is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our earthly homes are temporary.
The lack of love, from which we are willing to commit crimes [for example, to torture prisoners or abusing women] are obstacles to our real and permanent home in Paradise.
So nationalism is inconsistent with Christianity.
The Christian Empire of the Roma, the Romagna / ” Byzantium “) was not nationalistic:
all peoples inhabiting the territory and had equal rights and the saints from abroad were anything honoured by all Christians.
Typical examples are the great Syrian Fathers, St. Ephraim the Syrian [the great poet], the H. Isaac the Syrian [the ‘philosopher of love].
Only when their writings were translated from Greek into Syriac and were, they became the Byzantines into oblivion [Syrians themselves and mentioning they were convincing “Byzantine”].
The Greeks.
Like the Greeks spread the culture brought this Christianity to other countries, which were not subject, but instead, allies were made and the translation of the Bible [the creation of an alphabet, so that was not there], launched a new chapter in the great cultures of other nations.
In addition, ROMA ( “Byzantine” the church established, i.e. the universal church, a calendar where saints of all European countries were included in, incl. Great Britain and Ireland!
Greece, which under the lived Muslim rule were like now nationalists but were indifferent about whether they are in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania or Moldova Greek, Roman or were Slavic-speaking, even in Cappadocia living, Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians brought great ascetics and saints on. The great and miraculous Saint Arsenios the Cappadocian [sleep in Corfu, where he ended up as refugees], the people of God, created in Asia Minor from the catastrophe and preached in Greek as well as Turkish, because he and the Christians did not know who now Greek was and who was not.
They were all called Rum.
[= descendants of the Byzantine Empire] and when a Christian from distress Muslim was, they called him “Roma” [Romios was], and they were physically persecuted as traitors by the Ottoman state [we know for a reason many saints who tortured were, because they were converted to Orthodoxy from Islam].
Among the martyrs of the Ottoman Empire are foreigners recognised as saints, as the Holy great Martyr Xρυσή [is ‘ Gold ‘ with Bulgarian nationality],
H. Nicodemus of Elbasan [Albania], etc.
So what about the saints, which I as Christian worship,
is this the descent from abroad as an ” inferior considered ‘or uncivilised people?
When a man is suppressed whether he is black, gipsy, gay or female, disabled, widows and orphans, slave or foreigner etc.
Bulgarian, Greek, Lebanese, Syrian, Serbian, Romanian, Russian or Dutch, I’m just a Christian despite the many nuances and places.
We live for Christ sample in Love peacefully with one another along and among us are foreign immigrants subordinated hidden or unconscious selfishness, but on the way, we deal with our ordinary saints
Everybody seems in our secularised civilisation tend to have an isolated life with the aim to protect themselves from all the surrounding uncertainty.
However, the stranger, the immigrant the figure par excellence of the man the Good News brings to Christians on the way to the Kingdom.
The Apostle Peter says no different when he writes:
“Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against your soul and that you lead a good conversation among the Gentiles, that they further supervisory to that in which they slander you as evildoers, by virtue of your good works, glorify God in the day of visitation.
1 Petr.2: 11.12
Yes, we are all strangers in this world.
We are all like Abraham, who had left his country without knowing where he was going.
This is the fundamental confession of faith:
you detach from your origin to leave for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Christ’s Church is, in fact, called to share the gospel in word and deed with brothers and sisters who had to flee because of their faith to survive and those who do not know Christ yet.
What the Bible says about this vocation, evidenced by several concepts: hospitality, alien, and refugee.
Hospitality.
In the Bible, hosting is essential. Who is somewhere guests can expect hospitality.
Upon seeing three aliens, including God Himself, Abraham puts them right away water, bread, milk, and meat.
He also offers them water to wash their feet and a shaded area to rest.
It was a defeat for Abraham as the guests were ignoring him.
(Gen.18: 1-8 ).
If later the inhabitants of Sodom, the two strangers in their city – the angels of God – like rape, is not only reprehensible plan but also the grossest breach of hospitality (Gen.19: 4-11 ).
When the Israelites on their journey through the desert at the “brother people” Edom asking for free passage of the Edomites show no hospitality, but enmity (Num.20: 14-21 ).
David also gets a “closed-door” when he joined the wealthy farmer Nabal knocks.
Nabal’s wife Abigail immediately feels how shameful Nabal reject David’s request. Nabal because its abundance does not want to share with others, he is one of his own servants called “a wicked man” (1 Sam.25: 17 ).
When the prophet Elijah comes into the city Zarephath, he asks food boldly and drinks to a widow he encounters.
Naturally, they want to give him that, were it not that it has much more to bread itself (1 Kon.17: 10-12 ).
In the New Testament, you will see the same.
When Jesus at Simon the Pharisee is a guest, he says that Simon was at fault.
Simon has offered him no clear water to wash his feet, gave him a kiss and not anointed with oil. His head (Luke 7: 44-46).
The apostles call us to be hospitable people. So runs the third letter of John to open your home and your heart for itinerant servants of God.
Whoever closes his home and heart to his neighbour, as Diotrephes is doing, is not connected with God.
Christians are recognisable by their love – whose hospitality is an expression: “Put you on the hospitality” (Romans 12:13 ).
The guests you receive can be without you know angels: “Do not forget hospitality, for thereby some have unwittingly hosted angels” (Hebrew 13: 2 ).
How are you a Christian host or hostess?
If you should not grumble wholeheartedly: “Be hospitable to one another without grumbling” 1 Peter 4: 9.
Christian is inseparable from its hospitable.
‘Every man for himself “is contrary to the gospel.
The Bible is full of texts about God is a stranger.
Important are these words: “Then before the Lord your God, answer and say: My father was a Syrian lost.
He went to Egypt and sojourned there with a few people, but he became a great, mighty, and numerous people “(Deut 26: 5).
The nation of Israel is like a stranger.
(Exodus.23: 9 ). The identity of God’s people is inextricably linked to the sojourning of the patriarchs.
Later, King David says it this way: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers” (1 Chron .29: 15).
Then it becomes clear that asylum seekers among the Israelites have both rights and obligations.
Well, known are the words of the Ten Commandments about ‘your stranger who is within your gates “(Exodus 20:10, Deuteronomy 5:14).
He has the right to rest and keep the rest.
Elsewhere in the IP, it is prohibited to bend the law of the foreigner (Ex.22: 21, Lev.19: 33, Deut 24: 17, Jeremia.7: 5-6, Malachi 3: 5 ).
Who treats strangers disrespectful, cursed (Deut 27:19 ).
That’s why it says in the scriptures tell us what to corn, olives, and grapes, after the harvest have been lying on the ground, is for the foreigner (Lev.19: 9-10, Deut 24: 19-21 ).
The story of Ruth shows how the Moabite food could collect on the land of Boaz in Bethlehem.
In light of these data, it is not surprising that God’s Word has an explicit commandment of love on foreigners, “Therefore you shall love the stranger, for you have been strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev.19: 34, Deut.10: 19 ).
Israel must imitate God in love and compassion for asylum seekers.
“Who loves the alien by giving him food and clothing”. Deut 10: 18, and “The Lord preserves the strangers” (Psalm 146: 9 ).
In the New Testament is called the care of strangers as one of the good works that do believing widows 1 Tim.5: 9-10.
God points do in the IP six cities that serve as a ‘safe haven’ for foreign nationals who have slain someone (Num. 35:15 ) accidentally.
If the alien has at all times a shelter where he or she is safe if there is an accident with a fatal outcome.
Asylum seekers are in no way ‘outlawed’.
In a spiritual sense, the way all of God’s children aliens.
(Ps 119: 19 , 1 Petr.2 11 , Hebr.11: 13 ).
Peter tells us: “And if you call on the Father (…) then walk in fear of the Lord during the time of your sojourning” (1 Peter 1:17 ).
This earth is not the ‘home’ of Jesus’ disciples. They are namely the way to the Father’s house, and the new Jerusalem.
Their life is a pilgrimage to God’s future. Can a Christian really feel at home on earth?
In the parable of the sheep and the goats is evident who are the faithful followers of Christ.
They have called, among other foreigners welcome. It is essential that we meet in the stranger Jesus.
He says, namely: “Verily I say unto you, providing you one of these least of my brethren have done, you have done for me” (Matthew 25:40 ).
Leads us to the church – especially if there is a reception centre is nearby!
Refugee.
Jacob, Moses, David, and Elijah, many figures from the Bible have to flee at some point.
Refugees have a hard life.
The ‘hearth and home’ left behind and face an uncertain future.
But on all their escape routes, God is His children nearby so they can say, ‘You have counted my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle.
Are they not in your book? ” (Psalm 56: 9).
Through the centuries, Christians have often been on the flight.
The persecution of Christians that began after the murder of Stephen (Acts 8: 1 ) continues to this day.
The witnesses to faith already experienced how heavy it was, “The world was not worthy of them.
They wandered around in remote places and stayed on mountains, in caves and in holes in the earth ” (Heb. 11:38 ).
Whoever flees, homeless, takes little clothes, and must search for food and drink. God will have mercy on these refugees.
The question is what the church choose: love or fear? They are opposites!
1. In the Old Testament, the stranger not only a threat.
The stranger, along with the orphan and the widow to a vulnerable group par excellence.
God, Himself loves the stranger (Deut. 18:10 )!
2. The alien reminds the people of God to their own past.
Israel also has been a stranger in a strange land. This alone is reason enough to face the benevolent stranger (Ex. 22:21 ).
3. Jesus is not ashamed of an applicant, Ruth the Moabite, to be born.
(Matt. 1 ).
Later whole Jesus identifies Himself with the stranger when he says: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:. 35-44 ).
4. Both the Old and New Testament hospitality is an essential duty.
(Romans 12: 13; Heb. 13: 2; John 1: 5. ). The Greek word for hospitality even in the New Testament, literally means “love the stranger”.
5. A Christian is a stranger on earth.
( Heb. 11: 9,13 ). Undoubtedly, this means that he knows more than anyone else connected with refugees.
6. In both the Old and New Testament contains many promises to the people.
Paul is sure: the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, “and they will hear” Acts. 28:28.
So we may look at the stranger: as people for whom God has a promise.
7. Christ is the gap between the different nations entirely.
The Bible contains a promise of full integration and eternal for all those who love the Lord Jesus.
8. Son of God Himself was a refugee.
As a child, Jesus had to flee for his life.
After the wise men had gone, an angel of the Lord to Joseph in a dream saying, “Arise and take the young child and his mother with you, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I mean, for Herod will seek the Child to it to bring.
He then got up, took the child and his mother during the night with him and departed into Egypt “(Mat.2: 13-14 ).
The alien God is not strange because his own son was a fugitive.
So he became a partaker of our “refugee problem”.
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