How to Treat Foreigners

To answer the question of how we should treat foreigners perhaps we should first answer the question, “Who is our neighbor?” Jesus answered that question by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. When it was the despised Samaritan who offered aid to the beaten Jewish man and not the Jewish priest nor the Temple assistant, Jesus asked, “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attached by bandits?” The answer – the one who showed mercy.

Mercy. Compassion. Are these qualities missing from society today, or at least, in hibernation? The Today Show ran a story recently about the growing rudeness of society by running a hidden camera segment showing a pregnant woman standing in a crowded subway car. The point was made about how rude society has become by showing how few people, already in seats, stood up to give the pregnant (and fatigued) women their seat.

The message from Jesus is to show mercy and compassion to those in need. He did not make a distinction between race, nationality, or gender for that matter. In the parable of the Good Samaritan we see the story of a person in great need and that it was the foreigner who showed mercy.

The Bible has a lot to say, in fact, about how to treat foreigners. When Abraham wept over the death of his wife, Sarah, he was a foreigner at the time in the land of Canaan. There, in this foreign land, he was shown mercy by the Hittites who gave him land to bury his wife. (Genesis 23: 4-6) In fact, they let him chose from their finest tombs.

Mercy. Compassion. And respect. God tells us not to oppress the foreigners living among us, (Exodus 23:9). To mercy, compassion, and respect, we also add kindness.

In the book of Leviticus, God’s Holy Handbook to the Hebrews for how to live and worship, God instructs his people, “Do not exploit the foreigners who live in your land. They should be treated like everyone else, and you must love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. I, the Lord, am your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34, see also Deuteronomy 10:19).

Mercy. Compassion. Respect. Kindness. And now we add love.

On a short-term mission trip to Dangriga, Belize, Central America, I had the opportunity to experience all of the above, especially love. I thought I was going there to bring love, aid, teachings, and the message of God. But what I got from the people of Dangriga was more than anything I ever gave.

In February of this year, eleven people from my church, a small Lutheran church in Covina, California, embarked on a one-week trip to Belize through a mission organization called, “Praying Pelican.” They specialize in taking groups on short mission trips to Belize. Belize is an English speaking country, so for those with a missionary’s heart, but who also hold down a mortgage and a 9-to-5 job, it offers the opportunity to share the message of Christ’s love in a foreign land.

So there I was, the foreigner in a foreign land. While there, we led Bible studies and worship, witnessed to the neighborhood, visited the sick in their local hospital, painted the church and did some yard work. It was a great experience I have to say. But what I really got from it was the love, kindness, and gentleness that the Belizeans showed me and our entire group. The first day there, one of our group slipped and broke her arm. She was immediately taken to the hospital and cared for. They fed us, probably better than they fed themselves, and they shared with us a genuine love for Christ – they truly did love us as much as they loved themselves.

I kept thinking while I was there that if a group of my Belizean friends came to America, would they be treated the same? Would they be taken care of as if they were one of our own, as we were treated? Would the love of Christ that showed in their smiling faces be shown in ours? Or would we be too busy with trips to the beach, laundry, going on the Internet, Ipods, movies, Xbox, cell phones, and so many other distractions of life that keep us from truly interacting with each other as Christ commanded? With mercy, compassion, respect, kindness, and love.

I live in California where discussions around illegal immigration are at the top of the list. How do we treat these foreigners, these illegal immigrants? Going beyond my home, what about our soldiers in Iraq, how are they treated and how do they treat the Iraqis? And the rest of the world – what about all the full time missionaries in all the nations – how are they treated by their host county? In nations of great struggle like Africa – what about the ongoing crisis of genocide from Uganda to Rwanda to Darfu where neighbor rises against neighbor, nation against nation, tribe against tribe? In religious circles, how does the person of Christian, Islam, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, etc. faith get along with their religious neighbor?

The question isn’t about how we actually get along in the world today – the answer to that question is as varied as the grains of sand on a beach – with both positive and negative stories we see on the news every day – but the question is, how should we get along? How should we treat each other? Christ said the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself. Our neighbor includes not only the family living next door but the one who comes from a foreign land and everyone in between. Does that include our illegal immigrants, our soldiers in a foreign land, our missionaries across the world, our surrounding nations, our neighbors of different faiths, etc.? Of course. Think again of the Samaritan – the foreigner in foreigner land – the one who showed the most mercy. It all comes down to how we treat each other – “Others will treat you as you treat them,” Jesus says in Matthew 7:2. As far as God is concerned we are all equal before Him, and all are subject to the same laws (Numbers 15:15).

At one time or another, we are all foreigners. Just as I was the foreigner in Belize, just as Abraham was the foreigner in Canaan, as Christians, we need to keep in mind that we are the biggest foreigners. Remember how the hymn goes: “I’m but a stranger here, heaven is my home.” In Matthew 17: 24-27, the tax collectors asked if Jesus paid the temple tax. When Peter asked Jesus about it, Jesus asked if the kings taxed their own people or the foreigners. Peter answered, the foreigners. And so they paid the tax. As Christ’s people, we are the foreigners on earth. Our loyalty is to the real King – Jesus, not the kings of the earth.

Perhaps the clearest (and strongest) message from the Bible on how to treat others (that is, everyone) is given to us in Romans 12:9-10. “Don’t just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of good. Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other.”

That’s the way the people of Belize treated me, the foreigner.

At the end of the Good Samaritan parable, Jesus gives us a command. In the same way that the Samaritan showed mercy and love to his neighbor (and remember, everyone is our neighbor) Jesus tells us, “Now go and do the same.”

To that we answer, “Yes, Lord.”

With mercy.
With compassion.
With respect.
With kindness.
With love.