A More Excellent Way?

How do you bring good news to people who nobody wants?

Asylum Seekers are the great unwanted in our increasingly cosmopolitan country. The name tells you; they are looking for a place to rest.

Our Borders Agency tells us they are those who have not yet been granted refugee status. They live in a no man’s land between deportation and some sort of life in our very peculiar country.

Our media confuse Asylum Seekers with, illegal immigrants, migrant workers, and people “infiltrating” our society for some clandestine ends. Asylum Seekers also get confused with Refugees who have been granted leave to remain until our Government thinks it is safe for them to go home and then there are the folk that like us so much that they don’t want to go home when their visa runs out.

Asylum seekers are individuals, heroes, horrors and ordinary folk, fleeing real or perceived danger and seeking a new start. Can we help them, or have we decided to banish them to “outer darkness”? We do this by deporting them to somewhere else that does not want them or by surrounding them with policy designed to make healthy living impossible and which might act as a deterrent to others. Their choice is a slow death on our shores with perhaps the odd crumb from our table, or a faster one elsewhere. No wonder some people jump from the high towerblocks.

Can we not offer a more excellent way?

Our Scriptures have advice on provision for the stranger and the refugee. Deuteronomy 19 has an interesting concept of cities of refuge (even for baddies, but, under strict boundaries). The book of Ruth deals with a bunch of semi nomadic economic migrants and Philemon sets a good example of compassionate care and diplomacy when sending a transformed “slave” back to his “place of origin”

It may be a variation on a theme but we need to find Christ honouring ways to treat those who feel compelled to come to us.

How do you bring good news to people nobody wants?

Tell them they are loved by Christ and his Church and don’t just use words.

Pray that we live in ways worthy of the Gospel we proclaim.

Give them someone to live for.