Jeremy L. Berg

Hey friends!

We just finished up a 3-part Advent Series exploring Jesus as the perfect embodiment of Micah 6:8 spirituality that invites us to “do justice, love mercy, and walk in humility.” In between Sundays, I’m on college campuses trying to light a fire in college students to embrace and cultivate this kind of Christianity in the world today. Depressing statistics show young people leaving churches in large numbers, and I think one reason for this mass exodus is many churches and would-be Christians have traded teaching Jesus’ Way of justice, mercy and humility for fighting the “culture wars” by aligning with this or that partisan political agenda.

Today I’m reading and grading my students’ final paper where they must choose from a selection of hot-button contemporary issues and grapple with various perspectives on it curated by yours truly. The topics include Immigration, Christian Nationalism, Race in America, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You know, small potatoes. ;)

A theme from my sermon yesterday collides today with both my student papers and a reflection in my email inbox. In summary, Jesus taught that “doing justice” is central to his Kingdom mission. His followers should stir up a “hunger and thirst for justice” (Matt 5) and to make “His Kingdom and His justice” a top priority (Matt 6:33).

I ended my sermon last night asking: “Jesus, can you give us a practical example of what “doing justice” might look like in practice?” We then jumped to the final justice-bringing event in Matthew 25, the Final Judgment, when King Jesus will separate the “righteous” or “justice-doing ones” on his right from the others on his left. Jesus clearly says, meddling with the emphasis of much Protestant theology, that those who go into eternal fires and those who enter into eternal life will be based, at least in part, on whether or not they acted justly toward six groups of people in need of mercy and compassion. We read:

“Then the righteous [or justice-doers] will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ ⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:37-40)

If you’re looking for a literal “fire and brimstone” sermon from the mouth of Jesus, you’ll find it in Matthew 25 and his parable of the sheep and goats. Looking to “do justice”, “love mercy” and “walk humbly” this New Year as a family or church? Consider prioritizing the following six priorities, which many churches and Christians are already doing:

1. Feed the hungry: support your local food shelf.
2. Bring clean water to the thirsty: many short-term missions are doing this work.
3. Clothe the naked: clean out that closet and donate!
4. Care for the sick: This includes walking with those who struggle with mental illness.
5. Prison ministry: Consider supporting Angel Tree or Prison Fellowship this Christmas.
6. Welcome immigrants & refugees: Educate yourself on the immigration crisis and our call as Christians.

I just finished grading a paper on immigration, and its so rewarding seeing students’ eyes opened to both the Bible’s vast teaching on this issue and the complexities of issues our media likes to shove into narrow black-and-white boxes. I consider these teaching opportunities as an urgent mission to reach students with a true and compelling vision of the Christian life, and I am grateful for MainStreet Covenant and Kingdom Harbor partners for supporting me financially to do this outreach. (Would you consider a year-end donation, or becoming a monthly supporter in 2024? Learn more here.)

I then opened my email inbox to read the following reflection from Matthew Soerens, the National Coordinator of the Evangelical Immigration Table, a ministry that I follow and urge you to consider as the United States continues to wrestle with this very real and complicated crisis on our southern border. If we take Jesus seriously, the failure of Christians to welcome the foreign refugee can have eternal consequences. Enjoy!

BY MATTHEW SOERENS

This year, my six-year-old daughter has been cast as Mary in our church’s annual nativity play. Her three-year-old brother is a (very adorable) sheep, who may or may not ultimately follow instructions on Christmas Eve and lay serenely next to his sister in the stable.

Watching them rehearse this week, I was struck by what elements of the Christmas story tend to make it into our Christmas pageants, and which elements we tend to cut.

Our play includes the first few lines of Mary’s “Magnificat,” her song glorying the Lord, but leaves out the part about God filling the hungry while sending “the rich away empty” (Lk 1:53). Maybe we thought that was a little edgy for Christmas Eve.

We skip over Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, where unborn John the Baptist recognizes the Messiah from within his mother’s womb (Lk 1:41). Most plays don’t include the interaction at temple between newborn Jesus and the elderly Simeon and Anna – models of long faithfulness who might be examples to us in our short-attention span society (Lk 2:25-38). And though the Magi are a part of almost every nativity play – often kneeling to present their gold, frankincense and myrrh ahistorically alongside the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth – we tend to bring the curtain down just before the next scene, when Joseph is told to flee with Mary and Jesus across the border into Egypt, escaping King Herod’s jealous genocide (Mt 2:1-15).

That flight to Egypt is why many have described Jesus as a refugee. Certainly, even if there was no formal legal definition of that term at the time young Jesus was carried to Egypt, he roughly fits the current U.S. legal definition: he fled his country on account of a well-founded fear of persecution. But, as World Relief president Myal Greene notes, a better descriptor of Jesus, Mary and Joseph might be asylum seekers – individuals who reach another country and profess to be fleeing a well-founded fear of persecution, before such time as the local governing authorities have had the time to consider the evidence for that claim.

I don’t know whether ancient Egypt had any sort of asylum policies, but the United States does: decades ago, the U.S. government legally committed itself to the principle that, if someone reaches the United States and can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution, we will not send them back.

In recent years, though, that’s become complicated because our governmental systems for processing asylum requests have become woefully inadequate to the number of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many wait weeks or months for an appointment to even begin their case, and if they are allowed into the U.S., it takes an average of four years to get a final decision from an immigration judge. Most are ineligible to work for at least the first six months that they are awaiting their court hearings, but also ineligible for most governmental assistance, leading many to end up homeless (or to work without authorization). While many ultimately are approved for asylum, many more are denied, which usually means being ordered deported. And the very large number of people who keep showing up to begin the process has overwhelmed governmental facilities and processes to a breaking point.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators have reportedly been attempting to address this crisis by forging an agreement to reform asylum processing. Evangelical Immigration Table leaders have urgedthem to do so in ways that both make the border more secure and orderly but alsoensure due process for those fleeing persecution, voicing concerns with proposals that would seek to accomplish one goal at the expense of the other. Guided by biblical principles, we believe we can and should be both a secure nation and a compassionate nation. (And we’ve created this super-simple tool to help you call and leave a message with your congressional offices, urging them to support policies that meet this dual mandate).

As I watch my kids re-tell the remarkable story of Jesus’ birth this weekend, I’ll also be praying for our lawmakers as they consider how to set policies that impact people fleeing circumstances very similar to what our Lord and Savior experienced as a small child, just after the Magi returned to their country.

I’d invite you to join me in prayer – for Members of Congress, for the president and his administration, for vulnerable families and individuals seeing asylum, for Border Patrol agents and other governmental authorities tasked with maintaining order and security, and for the local churches along the border that are ministering in challenging conditions.

And I pray that you and your family will enjoy a meaningful and merry Christmas,

Matthew Soerens
National Coordinator, Evangelical Immigration Table

Any thoughts, friends?