The expert answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
(Luke 10:25-28, emphasis mine)
Home as Sanctuary
My mom has always treated hosting as a professional sport. An artform of love. When my high school friends would visit, she'd immediately ask, "Are you hungry?" (as any good Italian mother would). Rarely would they say no. If someone declined, the food still came. A "Thanks, but I'm not hungry" would only lead to some fruit or crackers a few minutes later.
Hosting to my mom was so much more than food or good etiquette. I remember my mom listening to my friends. Their stories, their hard pasts. All of it. Our house became a bit of refuge at times for some of my friends. They knew it was safe space to goof off, get fed, and be heard. When they entered the threshold of our home, they knew they had entered a safe place to themselves. A sanctuary.
One of my favorite movie quotes comes from a sequence in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Baudelaire siblings had lost their parents in a fire, and now they faced living with a fiendish guardian, Count Olaf. The siblings found quiet moments together to themselves, hidden under a candle-lit blanket to chat about their family memories. For them, this was their lone safe space, their sanctuary. The narrator takes a moment in this scene to define "sanctuary" in the context of the siblings' trials:
Sanctuary is a word which here means a small safe place in a troubling world. Like an oasis in a vast desert or an island in a stormy sea.
What a beautiful description and comparison! How we all long to feel safe, accepted, and found in a sanctuary. Our beautiful world is troubling, and its many ailments — from poverty to war — have cast many away from sanctuary.
The Bible explores the theme of sanctuary and God's presence among his exiled people:
- Through a sanctuary, God dwelt among his people, led them, and made a way for them to worship him.
- Through the sanctuary of his body, Jesus tabernacled among humanity and offered himself as the world’s redeeming sacrifice.[1]
- And as the Church, we get be a sanctuary to those who need rest, safety, and provision. If home is a sanctuary, then surely Body of Christ is one too.
Exiled Neighbors
God often reminded Israel about their exiled state and painful history, so they'd in turn be good neighbors to foreigners: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt" (Exodus 22:21, NIV). God used these moments to teach his people how to love him and to love others, especially the vulnerable.
Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.
Displaced people, which include immigrants and refugees, face the hardest trials: separation from family, destroyed homes, culture shock, economic crises, and a total loss of sanctuary.
Think on a time when you felt alone or separated from loved ones. Maybe you've lost your home or have felt the insecurity of poverty. Now, take a moment to imagine the magnitude of pain felt from over 123 million "forcibly displaced" people last year.[2] These numbers are shocking, and the total weight of it can only be felt by God. But take moment to let some of that weight sit on you...
By feeling with with our immigrant brothers and sisters, we can begin the journey of understanding and compassion. We'll explore the challenges faced by displaced people later, but for now think about the amount of broken and lost sanctuary in our world. You may feel this is the case in your spirit though you haven't been able to articulate it. For example, I believe the current heartaches of our world have driven many to crave nostalgic things, whether vinyl records or the memory of late-night rentals at Blockbuster. Perhaps this nostalgia conjures a sense of lost sanctuary, a time when life and home felt simpler, safer.
Neighboring Well
As a parent of a teen, I strive to make our home a welcoming place too. I try to imitate my mom's warmth and loving presence (though I'm "totally cringe" according to my son). And I believe that my mom's heart for neighboring reflects God's intention for us, his Church.
No matter who enters the threshold of our lives, we have the choice to be a true neighbor to others. We can love them as we'd want to be loved by opening our doors wide, or we can distance ourselves from them. We can pull up a chair, listen to them, and feed them; or we can turn them away at the door, wishing them well with promises of prayer.
As Christians, we are called to a higher level of love and neighborliness. The Apostle John left this sobering challenge for us hundreds of years ago:
(1 John 3:16-18, NIV)
When John describes seeing someone in need and having no pity on them, he is echoing the parable of the Good Samaritan. John's language is also more concerning than the NIV lets on in the translation above. The phrase "but has no pity on them" is a translation of the Greek text's "and closes (or locks) his heart against" the person in need. John contrasts the selfless love of Jesus and his followers with a compassionless response of someone who not only ignores someone's need but actively shuts the door of their heart to them. If you were to imagine your heart as a home, are you prone to closing the door or opening wide for others?
Thus, being a neighbor to someone is more than geographic proximity, friend circles, and socioeconomic status. As in John's writing and in Christ's parable, being a neighbor extends compassion and mercy beyond our thresholds of comfort.
The heart of neighboring is the heart of Jesus, who came near to His creation to redeem it.[3] We have the opportunity to reflect Christ's heart by opening our hearts and hands to our suffering neighbors. Thankfully, God has outlined clear teachings to His people about what it means to be a neighbor, especially to the immigrant.
To my fellow Christians, we have the ability to help alleviate the pain for our immigrant brothers and sisters who've fled homes for a better life. May we be a safe place for them to find sanctuary. May our churches and our homes be a place of healing. May we extend the same love and graciousness my mom has to dozens of rowdy teens and family members over the years. May we practice the heart of neighboring.
âŹď¸Ź Up Next
The parable of the Good Samaritan takes a surprising turn as the lawyer tests Jesus further with another question. We'll also explore what the Bible teaches about immigrants and exiles to help inform a Christian ethic of care.
- See the TLV's insightful translation of John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. We looked upon His glory, the glory of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth." ↩︎
- UNHCR, “Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024,” 4. ↩︎
- See Philippians 2:1-11 where Paul exults the love and humility of Jesus, our merciful and good Lord. ↩︎
