Jesus and the Aliens Among Us: A Biblical Mandate

Jesus and the “Aliens”

Recently, I posted here a long list of Old Testament scripture passages in which God commands the Hebrew people to treat “aliens” (foreigners, strangers) in the land (among them) with justice and compassion.

As expected, some people objected that these OT commandments do not necessarily apply to people today, here, in America. They pointed out that some OT commandments are clearly not applicable to us, here, today. For existence, passages about slaves. Some asked me for hermeneutical principles to justify arguing that these OT commandments about treating aliens, strangers, foreigners fairly and justly and with compassion.

A Basic Biblical Virtue

First of all, then, can ANYONE imagine Jesus saying about these passages, “It was said to you…but I say…?” In other words, contradicting them? I can’t. Listen to these imaginary words of Jesus: “It was said to you to treat aliens among you justly and with compassion, but I say unto you, hate them, mistreat them, round them up and expel them.”? If you can, you have a different Jesus than I have and than is revealed in the gospels.

Second, Jesus valued and commanded hospitality. The New Testament and the prophets commanded hospitality. Hospitality is a basic biblical virtue. If you disagree, then you are reading a different Bible than I am. And you have a different “Christianity” than I have.

God’s Will For Us

God’s commandments to the Israelites about how to view and treat “aliens,” foreigners, strangers, do not belong to the commandments of concession or of ritual observance or purity. They express God’s universal will for human beings, not just for Hebrew people in a time and place. That should be obvious.

”Well, we know that was God’s will for the Hebrew people, God’s people, in ancient Israel (and Judah), but we don’t think that is God’s will for us.” You would have to prove that or give very good reasons for it.

As many biblical scholars have observed, God’s commandments to Israel about matters like slaves were concessions to their limited ability to understand God’s will. Revelation is always accommodated. And there are trajectories in scripture towards the true and the real in God’s perfect will revealed in Jesus Christ.

Not Taking Jobs Away

None of this means that Israel was not supposed to have boundaries or that we, today, should not have borders. None of this means that we, today, or they, in the past, had to accommodate unlimited numbers of aliens, foreigners, strangers. It meant and means that WHEN SOMEONE IS ALREADY HERE AMONG US AS AN ALIEN, STRANGER, FOREIGNER, WE ARE TO TREAT THEM JUSTLY AND COMPASSIONATELY AND NOT WITH HATRED OR CRUELTY. What could be more obvious to a Christian?

Unfortunately, today, as always, SOME Christians do take a posture of hatred toward immigrants, especially (but only) “illegal” or “undocumented” ones. They are suspicious of them. They want them deported without due process. They want them denied basic human rights. They want governments to place them in concentration camps (whatever those might be called). They want them sent to prisons in Central American countries. They want them gone—no matter what that takes. And all that in a situation where they are not taking jobs away from anyone but working jobs that the vast majority of American citizens do not want and would not do.

Justice and Compassion

In other words, rather than treating them justly or with compassion, many of us American Christians demonize them, scapegoat them, view them as less than fully human, just as we have done in the past with so many “aliens” and foreigners, people of different races and nationalities and religions.

God will judge us severely insofar as we refuse to treat especially the children of aliens among us with justice and compassion. And the children are usually attached to parents or guardians who love them and who they love.

Recently, the American government confronted an undocumented immigrant mother with a horrible choice—go back to her home country, consumed with violence, the “murder capital of the world,” where women, especially, are being murdered en masse, with or without her children, citizens of the United States. God have mercy.

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