An aspect of that truth is that home is where we reconnect with our common story composed of chapters that elicit tears and laughter, bring joy and invite reflection, vignettes that lovingly and powerfully bind us together. And each time we gather, we create new chapters.
This First Sunday of Advent, Isaiah and the psalmist describe the mountain of the Lord's house, the house of the God of Jacob. The peoples of all the nations will stream to that mountain, and enter that house to learn God's ways, the common story that binds us.
Today millions of people around the world have no home. Further, the common story that God's people are to live by, that all are made in God's image, that we are to love sisters and brothers as we love ourselves, and welcome the stranger, is being opposed out of fear.
A test of both our society and the Church is how the vulnerable, displaced, and those escaping violence, famine, and persecution, are served with dignity and respect, and given new life. In the long story of God's people, and in the story of our nation, a new chapter is being written now, and we are its authors.
"O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth...."
(Book of Common Prayer, p 100)
This is an indispensable part of our common story as Christians: all people are our sisters and brothers, all people are us.
Every perversion of that sacred story must be denounced and repelled. To reject another person, especially one in some sort of need, is to reject God who made them, and the Lord Christ who dwells in them.
Emmanuel, God with us, has come, and is coming again. The time is short, and until we breathe our last or the Lord returns in glory, our work is to be lived out with urgent purpose. At the Last Day, from his throne Jesus will see in the lives of those most vulnerable the depth of our faith, and he will ask: When you saw me hungry, in danger, oppressed, in need of a home, in need of hope, how did you serve me?
Come thou long expected Jesus,
Born to set they people free,
From our fears and sins release us...
That all may find their home in Thee.
The Episcopal Church partners with the federal government to resettle thousands of refugees each year through Episcopal Migration Ministries. Our diocesan budget includes annual support for their local affiliate, Kentucky Refugee Ministries. The Episcopal Church began its ministry to refugees with port chaplains in the late 1800s, and developed resettlement programs to aid European refugees in the lead up to WWII. Our formal partnership to assist the US in resettlement work began in 1980 and continues today.
Learn more about the work Episcopal Migration Ministries does on our behalf here:
WHAT YOUR GIFT CAN DO
$25 provides a blanket for a refugee child
$50 provides a monthly bus pass for an adult seeking work
$75 provides groceries for a family's first week in Kentucky
$100 assists with medications for a sick mother
$150 assists with a heating bill for a 1-bedroom apartment
$500 assists with rent for a family's new apartment
$1,000 assists a family if someone gets ill and can't work
$2,500 co-sponsors a new family for 3-months
