Neighbourly love
Some Christians living in Kent are travelling over to Calais in order to minister to the immediate needs of migrants in the camps there. This is being labelled as controversial in some media reports. Should British people be bothered about the welfare of those in the Channel camps?
As a Christian myself I can understand why these followers of Jesus Christ should feel such service is the right thing to do. God is not silent on such matters. In the Old Testament, God’s people Israel were under his instructions not to close their hearts to the genuine needs of the foreigner and alien who might come their way. After all, Israel’s people also, at one time, were aliens and slaves in another land (Egypt) and God had been merciful to them.
In the New Testament, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable in itself would have been controversial, exalting as it does a despised foreigner (the Jews considered Samaritans as amongst the lowest of the low). In this parable, you will recall, the Samaritan traveller finds a man on the path who has been beaten and robbed. The traveller undertakes to meet the hapless man’s immediate need before transporting him to a home of safety, covering expenses from his own purse.
None of the above addresses the bigger issue of large numbers of people from the Middle East and Africa trying to force their way into Europe in the quest for a better life. It is obvious that mass migration is not sustainable. As I write, news is just breaking concerning 71 refugees suffocating in a lorry in Austria. May God have mercy upon us all, that a way through this dilemma may be found.
In the meantime, I ask you to consider just what the Christian gospel teaches about mankind in general. In the same way that the children of Israel were an alien people in Egypt, powerless and enslaved, well God says that this is a picture of how we all are from his perspective. By nature we are alienated from him and away from home. We are powerless to do anything about this because we are like slaves shackled to a treadmill of ignorance. The great news is that Jesus, a sort of Good Samaritan par excellence, empties his purse so to speak, in order to Minister mercy to men and women who know themselves to be broken and, metaphorically speaking, beaten and robbed. Will you welcome his ministration’s as I am sure many of those migrants around Calais welcome those of the Christians from Kent (as well as other agencies)?