Words of Welcome

Ruth 1:1-18 You may have noticed that immigration is in the news. That’s because it’s a major political issue in this election season. Nevertheless, most of us are descendants of immigrants, whether our ancestors came in colonial days or more recently. When it comes to the Bible, there are numerous immigration stories that might speak to our situation. Consider this confession in Deuteronomy about Abraham: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor, he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.” (Deut. 26:5).  This morning we hear the story of Naomi, her husband Elimelech, and two sons, Mahlon and Chilion,  who migrated to Moab when famine hit their homeland in Israel. While the family resided in Moab, they added to their family two Moabite women who became the wives of Naomi’s sons. Unfortunately, all the men in her life died. Nevertheless, Naomi’s daughters-in-law remained loyal to her.  One ...

Acts 5:27-32 When I was a child, we began every school day with the Pledge of Allegiance. In doing this we declared our love and support for our nation. I doubt if I really understood the implications of my pledge; it was just something I said every morning as school began. Only later, when I got older, did I begin to understand what it means to give my allegiance to my country. I also learned that not everyone agreed on what allegiance means. Do I, for instance, have to love it or leave it, as the old bumper sticker suggests? Do I have to agree with everything our government does in order to be a loyal citizen? With these questions about loyalty and allegiance circling in our minds, Christians face another question – is allegiance to the nation the ultimate allegiance? Or, does our allegiance to God trump our allegiance to family, to community, to nation? As we think on these questions, consider for a moment those who risked their lives in the 1930s and 1940s to hide their Jewish n...