Our Call as Christians to Take Action to Support Migrants
Our Call as Christians to Take Action to Support Migrants
“. . .for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. . .”
—Matthew 25:35
Beloved in Christ,
The clearest and most consistent moral imperative throughout all of scripture is the call to welcome the stranger. To confess God as Trinity is to affirm that God's very heart is a movement of embrace in a world marked by exclusion. Our story is the story of how God made our spiritual ancestors a people through liberating love when they were living under the oppression of slavery in Egypt. The Christian faith is always about bearing in mind that when we were strangers to God, God embraced us as beloved family. The Christian life is about always extending that embrace to the world, wherever we are.
Over the past few weeks, there has been a flurry of executive orders from the new presidential administration targeting immigrant populations in this country. Reports from my colleagues in the House of Bishops and others of confusing and chaotic arrests and racial profiling by federal agents have followed closely in their wake. The end of federal funding for refugee services has had a devastating impact on our own Episcopal Migration Ministries, which has been a key part of our nation's work of welcoming refugees for almost a century. Here in Minnesota, this will have an immediate and painful impact on families that have been served by EMM’s local affiliate, the Minnesota Council of Churches. Hateful, dehumanizing rhetoric and aggressive policies have further marginalized an already vulnerable population. This is a moment for us to recommit to the stranger among us with the love God extends to every human being.
I am writing today to outline three important ways I am calling on us as a diocese to respond in this moment.
Migrant Support Fund
First, today I am establishing a migrant support fund. I will be seeding this fund with an initial gift of $10,000, and I am asking even faith community in the diocese to consider designating the offering for the last Sunday after Epiphany, March 2, to help build this fund. The situation is changing and unfolding too quickly to outline all this fund will be used for, but with the disruption in federal funding, the incredible work being done by a number of our congregations at the grassroots, we know the need is already great, and will only continue to grow. I will also be reaching out to ecumenical colleagues in Minnesota to ask them to join us in whatever way they are able.
You can find all the information you need to donate online or send in your check by clicking here.
Organizing and Advocacy
I am deeply grateful to the leaders of our own ECMN Migration Caucus, who have convened regular online gatherings in recent months to help local leaders understand better what is happening, and how best to engage and support this work in their context. I will be looking to this group to continue to help us organize and advocate, not only for direct relief and support, but for just policy at the state and federal levels in the years to come. Virtual gatherings take place on the second Monday of each month at 7 PM, and all are welcome to attend.
The next meeting is Monday, February 10th. To receive the Zoom link, contact Deacon Rex McKee at rex.mckee@gmail.com. These meetings offer opportunities for prayer, resource sharing, and calls to action.
They have also curated many resources that you can find here. Please feel free to share these resources with members of your congregation, and make them available to the local community.
Pray
Finally, faithful action in the world must always be grounded by yoking our hearts to the living God through prayer. We cannot do this work or bear this witness if we rely only on our own efforts. To help us pray together, I offer the collect below, and encourage congregations to use it as the concluding collect at the Prayers of the People every Sunday between now and Easter Day.
While we are recommitting today to funding, advocacy, and prayer, none of these will address every challenge or need. As limited human beings, we cannot save or fix the world. Our work as disciples of Jesus in the face of the world's brokenness and suffering is always about witness and resistance.
In this season, as in all seasons, we are called to resist the forces that assault the belovedness and dignity of every human being, and to witness to our hope of God’s coming kingdom, where the only law is love, and where all people, from every tribe, language, race, culture, and nation, gather together in perfect joy, peace, and abundant life.
O God, who embraced us with perfect love and made us your people when we were yet strangers to you: be present with all refugees, immigrants, and displaced people throughout the world; may they know the consolation of your presence, and the liberating power of your love. Then give us grace, we pray, to extend ever wider your embrace in a world of exclusion, until all your children are knit together as beloved family in the perfect love that is your very heart, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who was displaced among us, and who now lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
The Rt. Rev. Craig W. Loya
X Bishop, The Episcopal Church in Minnesota