Sermon for World Refugee Day Chapel Service
Our religious journey is about going home, searching for that garden where once again we might know ourselves in right relationship with God and each other. Thatâs what Paul is getting at in his letter to his brothers and sisters in Corinth â his journey home to God has had enormous obstacles â being put to hard labor, thrown in prison, flogged and stoned, and often near death â but he hasnât stopped trying to reach that home. Heâs been stoned and shipwrecked, adrift at sea, in danger from the forces of nature as well as human beings, supposed friends, enemies, and foreigners. Heâs been hungry, thirsty, cold, naked, and sleepless, but he keeps on journeying toward home.
Thatâs a pretty fair description of the experience of many refugees. The word first appears in the late 17th century, applied to Huguenots, seeking safe refuge from the persecution theyâre suffering. The meaning expands to include civilians fleeing the violence around their homes in Flanders during the First World War. In either case, itâs about having to leave home, because of war or a different sort of organized violence, like the millions who have fled the Swat Valley in Pakistan in recent months. In the last few years, the ranks of refugees have expanded due to environmental cataclysms like the floods in New Orleans, storm damage in the Iriwaddy Delta, volcanic eruptions in Montserrat, and now, drowned coasts in Bangladesh and rising sea level in Kiribati and Tuvalu.
In every case, people leave home and need to find another one if they cannot go back. Yes, we may be on a journey, but we all yearn for a place to lay our heads, raise children, feed families, find meaningful employment and a place in a community that will care that we exist. âIt is not good that the adam (the earth-creature) should be aloneâ (Gen 2:18). And the responsibility of the people of God is always to âcare for the widow and orphan, and for the sojourner in your midst.â Sojourners, wanderers, or foreigners include those people who have fled their homes because life simply cannot continue there.
Weâre here today to remember those who have no home, to learn what we might do to care for the sojourner, and to discover that the sojourner just might be the treasure hidden in our midst.
I met a Sudanese family when I was in Mobile (Alabama) last month, members of All Saints Episcopal Church. We helped to dedicate a Habitat home that had been built for this extended family of 15-20 people. The mother had lost children in Sudan, taken back by her dead husbandâs family, sheâd remarried and raised more children, taken in cousins and their relatives, recovered her first brood, and somehow they had all made it out of a refugee camp to be resettled in Mobile. They lived in a neighborhood with several other refugee families, including Iraqi Muslims. All had gathered for this great event of handing over the keys and the ownerâs manual for a new home. The mother was going around hugging those who had helped to make her new home possible. Her embrace was like the fierce mother bear to whom God is compared in the Bible â a nearly crushing embrace that said, âI will never let you go,â and delivered with ululations and words of joy. Her demonstration became a sacrament of home. Thatâs the work set before us â we, too, are meant to be a sacrament of home.
What does home smell like to you? What does it feel like? It shouldnât smell of blood, or cordite, or fear. It should feel like a warm embrace that says the life of this wanderer matters. It should say, you belong here, and we will help to make this a home big enough to give you a place and meaning and hope and peace