“Jesus, the Refugee”

Matt. 2:13-23

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, December 28, 2025

I recently heard a story on the NPR series, “Unsung Heroes,” that I thought was appropriate for Christmas time. In 1989, Mary Klein had just moved to Phoenix. She was alone in a city where she didn't know anyone. On Christmas Eve, she decided to go see a movie to cheer herself up. Driving back in the dark, she got lost. She pulled over to look at her map. “I had honestly no idea where I was,” Klein said. “And there was just nothing but desert around me.” She began to cry.

Then she saw headlights approach behind her — a car slowing to a stop. A couple came to her window and asked if she was OK. “I said, ‘I'm OK,’” Klein recalled. “But I was lost and I couldn’t find my way back to my house. The woman got in the car with me and said, ‘We're going to take you home. My husband’s going to follow us.’” When they got to her house, they came in with her, to make sure she was OK. They left their phone number and told her to call if she needed anything.

The next day, around noon, she heard a knock on her door. It was the same couple with a picnic basket full of food. They had come to share their Christmas dinner with Klein. “And we just chatted all afternoon,” Klein said. “The fact that they did that on Christmas, [spending] time with me as a total stranger really touched my heart.”

Nearly 40 years later, inspired by their example, Klein still looks for opportunities to connect with others who might be spending the holidays alone. She said, “Honestly, that was probably one of the most lonely moments I ever felt in my life. And for somebody to come to my rescue that was a total stranger had a profound impact on me.”

This story reminds me of Hebrews 13: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Perhaps the writer of Hebrews was thinking of the story in Genesis 18, where Abraham welcomes three strangers. He invites them to sit in the shade of a large tree outside his tent and brings them food: bread, meat, and curds and milk. The visitors turn out to be angels, who prophesy the birth of their son, Isaac.

I recall many pleasant afternoons in African villages where I was invited to sit under a shade tree and rest. Since I was a pastor, usually a special chair was brought out for me, along with some fruit and maybe a soda or tea. In a Maasai village in Tanzania, I was given chai with warm goat milk. It was delicious!

Hospitality is an ancient and sacred tradition, which we may be in danger of losing in our present day. In times past, when restaurants and inns were scarce or non-existent, many cultures recognized that welcoming a stranger could mean the difference between life and death for a traveler or a newcomer.

Back in 2007 Joe visited Timbuktu, a city in the middle of the Sahara. It was an eight-hour drive across the desert. At one point they saw another car, stopped in the sand. The driver of the car Joe was in turned aside to ask if everything was OK. Thankfully, they were fine. The driver explained that he never passed a vehicle stopped in the desert without checking if they needed help – the next time he  might be the one stranded in the Sahara!

Nowadays, we are very self-sufficient. We don’t worry about getting stranded in the desert, so to speak. We have cell phones and Triple-A. Some cars even have a feature that automatically calls for help. assisting a total stranger isn’t usually a matter of life or death. Yet, in some way, we all depend on each other. We drive on roads built and maintained by other people. We live in houses we did not build with our own hands. The fruits and vegetables, meat, and milk we buy in the grocery store were raised, picked, processed and packaged by someone else; well-maintained parks, gardens, and hedges, leaves blown into neat piles and carted off – this work is often done by someone other than ourselves. The elderly and infirm are sometimes cared for by family members, but often are assisted by people from other countries and cultures, usually from places where the elderly are respected and cherished. Whether it’s a stranger lost in our neighborhood or an immigrant from another country, we are all connected by our common humanity. We are all created in God’s likeness. Jesus commanded us to love one another as we love ourselves. Hate is not an option.

Looking the other way when someone is in need isn’t even an option. God calls us to love one another – no exceptions.

I am reminded of Pope Leo’s recent Christmas Eve message, as he spoke of Christ’s birth as God revealing himself to humankind. He said,  “The divine light radiating from this Child helps us to recognize humanity in every new life. To heal our blindness, the Lord chooses to reveal himself in each human being, who reflect his true image, according to a plan of love begun at the creation of the world. As long as the night of error obscures this providential truth, then “there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger” …there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person. To refuse one is to refuse the other. Yet where there is room for the human person, there is room for God; even a stable can become more sacred than a temple…”

Of course, we don’t need Pope Leo to tell us to recognize the image of God in each human being, including immigrants. He was only repeating what the Bible tells us back in Genesis 1.27:

“So God created humans in his image.” Our likeness to God is re-affirmed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us. Because each person is created in God’s image, each is worthy of dignity and respect. As Jesus taught, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Some of those who have often been mistreated throughout history are immigrants, people who are not “from our tribe or nation.” Throughout the Bible we are reminded that outsiders and foreigners are among those who are under God’s special protection, along with widows, orphans, and the poor. Passages such as Deuteronomy 10.17-19 remind us: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords…, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.” In this morning’s Psalm we read, “The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.” Remember the passage in Matthew 25, where Jesus says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father,

inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…”

Most people would rather stay where they are, secure with loved ones and family, in a familiar culture and place. Yet throughout human history, people have left their birthplace and traveled to an unfamiliar country, when faced with famine, violence, or war. Sometimes economic factors make it impossible for them to earn a living and support their family, so they go to where jobs are more plentiful.

There are a number of examples of this in the Bible, such as Naomi and Elimelech, who went to the land of Moab when there was a famine in Judea. There they met Ruth, who returned with Naomi and became one of the ancestors of Jesus – a foreigner and an immigrant herself. In Genesis, Jacob and his sons leave their land during another famine to seek sustenance in Egypt. Their families remain there for generations. This is why, in the Old Testament, the reason most often given for kindness to immigrants is, “You shall also love the stranger,

for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Of course, the most famous of all refugees in the Bible are Joseph, Mary and Jesus, fleeing the violence of the wicked King Herod. Like many  asylum seekers today, they had definite reason to believe that their lives were in danger. All of us would act similarly, if we and our families were going hungry or in danger, and we saw no other option.

Some say that the treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers is a purely political matter, but any topic mentioned so frequently in both the Old and New Testaments, a topic that Jesus Christ speaks directly to in Matthew 25, is something for Christians to pay attention to. As we have seen, even Jesus and his parents experienced the displacement and suffering that can come from having to flee one’s native land. If we want to follow God’s law, and honor Jesus’ teachings, we need to make sure that foreigners and immigrants in our country are treated with compassion and justice and instead of cruelty and injustice. We must treat others as we would like to be treated if we were in their shoes.

In a democracy, we must insist that the government that represents us act justly, respecting everyone’s basic human dignity.

As Pope Leo said on Christmas Eve: In Christ, “God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person. While humanity seeks to become “god” in order to dominate others, God chooses to become man in order to free us from every form of slavery,” and, I would add, from every form of injustice and oppression as well.

The good news is that God welcomes everyone: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” We are all welcome in God’s family.

I will conclude with a short poem by African American author and theologian, Howard Thurman, called “The Work Of Christmas”:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart.

And I don’t think Thurman would mind if I add, “To welcome the stranger.” Amen.

Sermon ©Deborah Troester 2025