I sat in a class for refugees new to the United States last Friday. Some of the class members were Nepali. Others were Syrian. The Nepalis came in comfortable and talkative. They knew each other and their interpreter. They were very much at ease in the class which talked about ways to maintain family strength and solidarity. The Syrians sat toward the back and were more quiet. I sat near them and wondered: who are these strangers at my door?
With smiles and encouraging looks, I began to try to make friends. The initial response was guarded, but not unfriendly. As I began to do some of the teaching, the Syrians responded more openly. By the end of the three hour class there was wisdom shared, concerns expressed, and real warmth exchanged between Nepalis and Syrians, and between both groups and me. Perhaps in three more hours we might have been well on our way to becoming friends.
Yet, still I wondered, “Who are these strangers at my door?”
Conversation with resettlement agency staff later piqued my curiosity more. A staff member who came to the US a number of years ago from Croatia talked about her experience coming to the US. It wasn’t awful, but it was hard.
One thing she said rings in my heart. “You get used to peace and you take it for granted. You have a life. It is pretty good. Then one day the bombs fall and everything is changed forever.” As she left her country they were transported out in great army trucks that were only filled with 25 people at a time. She asked why. “Because if a grenade or bomb hits the truck, only a small number of people will die,” she was told. This is reality for many of the strangers at America’s door.
Today’s Gospel is the story of the rich man who ignored the stranger at his door. Lazarus, the stranger, was a beggar whose body was covered with sores. He would have loved to have the scraps from the rich man’s table. Dogs came and licked his sores. When Lazarus died, he appeared to the rich man, wrapped in “the bosom of Abraham.” The rich man now was the one in need, for he was in torment. He begged Father Abraham to send Lazarus to wait on him…or at least to go warn his brothers. But it was too late. There was a chasm which separated the two worlds.
Lazarus was a dangerous stranger at the rich man’s door. He wasn’t dangerous because he might rob or attack him. He was dangerous because failure to care for his needs separated the rich man from God.
The mental health agency I lead starts every staff member/intern off with teaching classes in the local jail. Everybody is scared of these strangers—as I was the first time I heard those heavy metal doors close behind me. Yet literally everyone comes to see this as an eye-opening, enriching experience. They get to know the strangers.
For several years I also sent them to a day center for homeless to play bingo once a week with the chronic homeless. Many who are homeless in the US are mentally ill, chemically dependent, or have limited intelligence. They are, generally, more frightening than prisoners or refugees, but when a mental health professional can see each one as a PERSON, not a diagnosis or stranger, something is transfigured in their capacity to help people. These strangers are good for us to get to know.
All these people are strangers at our doors. The name of any of them could be Lazarus.
After the refugee class, I spent the weekend in a Benedictine convent on silent retreat. I took the Sermon on the Mount as my topic of study and prayer. As I have heard homilies on it these past couple of months I wanted to take time to see what standards it really sets. What is Jesus really telling us to do?
I want to know. I want to do it.
But the standard seems very, very high.
I focused the weekend mostly on the Beatitudes, though I also discovered that the various do’s and cast outs can be folded into the Beatitudes—at least in general terms. I used several commentaries or books that gave MANY interpretations of what the Beatitudes mean.
Generally, though, the interpretations fell into two categories: those that focused on meanings for care of the poor, for peace and justice, and those that focused on requirements for personal holiness.
Do we hunger and thirst for “what is right” or for “holiness?”
Read the commentaries and you could conclude that is an either-or question.
But it can’t be. Jesus said clearly, “The first commandment is this: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is like unto it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 37-38)
For Jesus, it is both-and.
So it should be both-and for me.
Back to the strangers at our doors—be they Muslim Syrians, undocumented Mexicans, homeless mentally ill, or a neighbor down the street who is just plain strange. Who are they and what do they ask of us by their presence?
I hear fairly frequently about the strength of martyrs. I pray regularly for persecuted Christians. And I count among my close friends a woman from Nigeria whose house was burned just because her family was Christian and another woman whose father was murdered in Central America just because he was a Christian missionary. I do not know how I would stand up for my faith if I were put in those circumstances. I have a friend who prays for martyrdom. I do not.
Please, Lord, let me die in my bed of old age.
But I have to also recognize that, like the rich man in today’s Gospel, I can and do ignore the strangers at my door. Why? Because getting to know strangers feels like a great risk. I can persuade myself I do not need to take that risk. I think I fear a bit of martyrdom in it.
But today’s Gospel, when I pray about it and remember the refugee class last Friday, pokes at me. That stranger—the person I do not know, that somehow I also recognize as in need—that person is dangerous to me. Not because he or she might hurt me, but because my faith calls for me to love this stranger and I resist.
That I don’t have time or that this is not my concern or that I don’t know how–all those are lies I tell myself to justify stepping over the stranger at my door, pretending he or she isn’t there or doesn’t matter.
THAT is dangerous.
The reading from Jeremiah today concludes,
“More tortuous than all else is the human heart,
beyond remedy; who can understand it?
I, the LORD, alone probe the mind
and test the heart,
To reward everyone according to his ways,
according to the merit of his deeds.”
It begins, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.”
When we as a culture–when I as a person–ignore the needs of the strangers among us because we are afraid of them—what is that saying? Is it saying that we are not willing to take risks to love others as ourselves? Are we trusting in human beings (ourselves, our culture, our government) while our hearts turn away from the Lord?
That seems very dangerous to me. Far more dangerous than any threat of martyrdom because it risks my Christianity.
Prayer:
Lord, why do we see martyrdom for belief in you as glorious, but the quiet martyrdom of taking care of any Lazarus we meet as “too much to ask,” “not necessary,” or even as “imprudent?” What is prudence other than thinking like God thinks?
Forgive me, Lord, because when the stranger is really unknown to me, I hesitate. I am afraid of the person or culture I do not know. Then I justify my hesitation.
Probe my mind. Test my heart. And let my deeds be pleasing to you. Give me true prudence and wisdom. Convert me, O Lord. Give me courage to reach out to each Lazarus you send me. Amen.
