Lift Your Lamp

I was there. I've seen her with
my own eyes. Let's not make
her into a liar.

If in your church today: nobody is talking about the stranded legal residents and visa holders who spent the weekend in a state of uncertainty and undeserved fear (and those who still are); nobody is discussing how to help refugees around the world; nobody mentions the human rights atrocities that are being committed right now; then you're in the wrong building.

In fact, if you haven't been talking about refugees and what the Bible has to say about the stranger in your midst for the past year (at least), you may be in the wrong building anyway. We know what happens when we ignore people in a humanitarian crisis. We know. We swore "never again;" did we really mean it? I can't think of many better ways of creating bitter enemies than this.

Miss Saigon is a problematic musical that deserves most of the criticism it receives. Yet for all its problems, there's a clear moment that should be heart-wrenching and condemning--when the gates of the embassy are flooded by hundreds of people of Saigon, begging for their lives. Chris is frantically searching the crowds for Kim, unwilling to leave her behind, and when John forces Chris into the helicopter, he tells him, "She won't be the only one we betrayed." In the literal name of everything holy, please let's not do that again. And folks who claim to be Christians first--before nation, before political party, before all else--cannot be silent while we go down that road.