BLOG 10/26/16. “IN HAUNTS OF WRETCHEDNESS AND NEED” – REFUGEES
Periodically, in recent news articles, we have been reading about the deaths of the last of the Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust, and of the death camps in World War II. We have also been belatedly ‘beating our American breasts’ with our confession of how insensitive we, in this country were, to the pleas of so many of those Jewish folk for asylum in this country at that time. It is too late to lament that we did not do enough then. But before us right now is a human tragedy that dwarfs all of the horrendous atrocities of that tragic period of recent history. Today there are 65.3 million refugees, their lives endangered, torn from their secure homes, their traditional cultures, their security, and their roots, by terrorism, warfare, ethnic hatred, and that myriad of circumstances totally out of their control, … and set adrift on a journey into an unknown perilous world with only what they can carry with them. This is the largest number of refugees in the history of the world!
There is a hymn that was once a prominent part of our hymnology (but which doesn’t appear in many more recent hymnbooks): “Where cross the crowded ways of life, where sound the cries of race and clan … In haunts of wretchedness and need, on shadowed thresholds dark with fears … we catch vision of Thy tears.” I read the accounts of those migrants seeking to survive amidst all of the circumstances, to survive in near impossible settings, to endure the contempt of other nations reluctant to receive them … and I catch “the vision of Jesus’ tears.”
I read these accounts of Syria, of South Sudan, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, of so many nations, and I read them in the comfort and security of my own wonderful home with heat and air conditioning, with three meals a day, with good neighbors, with a civic government that is humane and which provides security in positive ways, … and I think: How am I to respond to that colossal human need, and that flood of refugees that is too staggering to comprehend? What do I do? How can I remain passive in the face of such?
All of those decades ago, in that tragic period of World War II, Albert Einstein (himself displaced) said: “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” And to put feet on that conviction he was instrumental in founding the International Rescue Committee, whose well established ministry to this day is a major provider of resources for refugees across the globe. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has the backing of that international organization and access into the scenes of the deepest hostility and need like almost no other. I am a fervent supporter of Doctors Without Borders because they are ‘Johnnie-on-the-spot’ when disaster strikes, (and in recent times have taken the loss of critical medical personnel themselves due to misguided military action). There are wonderful other agencies also engaged in these ministries that are hugely commendable.
Some of my sincere friends say to me: “But those aren’t Christian agencies!” To which I respond that when Jesus said that: when we clothed the naked, fed the hungry, took the homeless into our homes, visited the prisoners, etc. … that in ministering to them, that we were, in fact, ministering to Him, … it says to me that these are ministries of mercy and humanitarian urgency that are dear to his heart. I believe that in seeing these “haunts of wretchedness and need,” we ought to catch the vision of His tears. And while there are significant Christian ministries at work, for which I am thankful, I don’t think Christian profession is the priority in meeting such immediate and pressing needs. To do nothing, then, makes one culpable in this moment of such overwhelming urgency. Jesus said to those he rejected, that when they did it not do it to the least of these, that they did it not to Him. “Only the life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” I hope my readers hear the cry of my own heart, and join me in doing whatever we can to bring some hope to those 65.3 million fellow humans adrift in the unknown places into which they have been thrust, not by their own design. Lord have mercy!
