What about Refugees?

Over the past week or two, our city has been embroiled in one of those bitter divisions that mainly show up on facebook. My daughter asked me and my wife last night why we even look at facebook. Ahhhh, the wisdom of youth! Fair point my dear sweet child, fair point. If only I were as wise as her.

This debate that is making people yell and scream at one another is about refugees. And you probably know the type of fight I am talking about. The kind of fight where people sit at home on their devices and yell across the city at people they probably don’t know. The kind of fight where human beings made in God’s image are belittled in horrible and despicable ways. In this case, people are belittled and degraded for either holding an opinion that someone might disagree with, or simply being from another country.

The way we speak to one another on social media is often despicable. There are some things in the church that we demand our people change in their lives. Things like greed, lust, gossip, and slander, yet we allow people who claim the name of Jesus to speak to other people on facebook the way we do. I think something needs to change. Maybe we need to start excommunicating people who speak harshly on facebook.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about. I don’t think. There is a good chance that is exactly what I want to talk about. But let’s put this in context.

Do you know what a refugee is? Really, do you? It is a person who has to leave the place that they have called their home (perhaps for generations) because it has become too challenging to live there any more. A refugee is a person looking for refuge in a place that is safe for them and for their family. A refugee is an exile, a wanderer in a place that is not their home.

Should we take more refugees in our city? Do we have space for them? These are valid questions. Last year’s 24 didn’t seem too overwhelming. But its ok, people have questions and a reasonable discussion is a good and healthy thing. In fact, I would deeply appreciate it if I could see a reasonable discussion. I hope we are capable of it.

The next public meeting is Monday the 9th at Horizon Middle School. Questions are fine. In fact from what I hear, most people deeply misunderstand this issue. So, ask your questions and hear the answers.

That’s important, hear the answers. Really, are you listening? Listening and hearing involve learning and change. But most of us don’t want to learn or change.

Before you come to the meeting, or before you post on facebook, or before you talk with anyone about this or any other issue, ask yourself a few questions.

Ask, “Am I committed to my opinion or am I committed to the truth?” Are you willing to change? Are you willing to hear information you did not know and alter your opinion? Are you only there to add more noise and demand your way?

Ask, “Am I committed to my opinion or am I committed to compassion?” Truth and compassion are not mutually exclusive. You can have truth and compassion. I would even say we could compassionately decide as a community that right now we don’t take anymore refugees. (Keep in mind, I am not advocating that, I just think it could be done) But in order to do that we need to be more committed to being kind than we are to being right.

Ask, “Am I pursuing the values of Jesus or the values of my culture?” This is an important question, though I recognize it’s probably not relevant to everyone reading. And that’s totally cool. But if you claim to follow Jesus, this is one we really need to ask. And it’s one that faithful Christians may actually arrive at different answers to. We are called to love our neighbors and to love the nations. We are called to care for those around us. For some faithful Christians that might mean we have enough people around us. For others it might mean we need to invite more people from other lands to join us here. If we are truly asking this question we will be able to have a civil discussion.

Let’s see how that works.

Now, let me go ahead and say I support more refugees coming. Those I have known have been wonderful people and great additions to our community. But am I committed to the truth? If I were shown that refugees coming to Bismarck were interested in murdering me in my sleep, or blowing up my house, I would be willing to alter my opinion. But I don’t see the data that way.

I am still committed to compassion. I know that many of my neighbors are deeply afraid of those that might be different. This is not racism. Let’s not pin that label on people just to win an argument. This is a post 9/11 world where we now know that the world is not safe. Many of us who lived most of our lives in the relative safety of the Cold War want to keep the world safe from random bombings and machete attacks. This isn’t a joke, these things do and have happened. They happen far too often. Because humanity is cruel and wicked. And we do awful things to one another. I know exactly why “the other” is scary. But I also know what living by fear does to our souls and our lives. Please, understand that my compassion toward my neighbor causes me to hear them and hope for their best.

Am I pursuing the values of Jesus or my culture? I need to say that I believe someone could faithfully come to a different opinion on this. But I am following the values of the large kingdom of Jesus. America and American culture will not be remembered as much in the new heavens and the new earth that Jesus is bringing about. Chances are that America, like every country before it, will fade, change, and morph into some other sort of geopolitical entity. I am not interested in protecting the America of yesterday. Now, you need to hear me say that I think the Constitution is an incredible piece of political And philosophical work. One of humanity’s greatest achievements. So I am not downing America. I am simply saying, I hear the debate as a conversation about “protecting our culture” versus “welcoming the foreigner.” And I choose to welcome the foreigner because I believe love will last longer than our culture.

Again, you can come to a different conclusion and still be following the values of Jesus. But you cannot tell me that my conclusion is invalid (Especially in an angry and belittling tone) if you are truly being faithful to the kingdom values of Jesus.

Truth, compassion, kingdom. These things are important. It is also important for those among us who claim to follow Jesus that we remember that we are indeed exiles and wanderers. We are here, but we do not belong here. Hmmm… Perhaps we have more in common with refugees than with our neighbors who are other than Christian? If our primary identity is as one who does not belong, I have to think it will inform our opinions and even more importantly the way we engage one another in this and other areas.

What identity informs your opinion? What identity informs the way you speak to others who do not agree with you? Will you be compassionate and teachable? Or will you bitterly insist on your own way? Which of these do you believe is best?

I’ll let you decide what you want to be. And together we in Burleigh County can decide who we want to be.